Yuko Mohri | Assume That There Is Friction and Resistance

Yuko Mohri, born 1980 in Kanagawa, Japan, is an installation artist whose creative process transforms entire spaces into artwork. She recasts reconfigured everyday items like dusters, spoons, and empty cans and reveals intangible forms of energy such as electricity, magnetism, and wind. Mohri’s works exhibit strange movement, almost as if the objects themselves are living, breathing beings. Other times, her objects seem possessed by a larger force beyond
human control.

At the Towada Art Center, she exhibits a new large-scale, sound-based assemblage inspired by movements such as spirals, spins, and swirls as seen on different scales, such as in ammonites and multi-stranded wires and cables. Her works can be symbolic of the orbit of celestial bodies, and, at the same time, reveal aspects of large social movements.

In addition to video and prints, Mohri also brings contingency and improvisation into her installations to form ecosystems that are entirely her own, captivating museum-going audiences both at home and abroad.

Message from the Artist

The other day I strolled from Lake Towada through Oirase Gorge. Massive boulders littered the valley floor, blocking the river and splitting waterfalls, torn from cliffs formed in an eruption over 200,000 years ago.

Trees and mushrooms grow among dense, bright green moss that covers the rocks. The rocks appear to stand still, but according to my guide, they have been in a constant state of motion, slowly rolling through the valley for hundreds of years. L ike a Rolling Stone played in super slow motion! Delicate bubbles form at places where enormous rocks resist the force of 5.2 tons of water rushing past every second.

Assume That There Is Friction and Resistance, held at the Towada Art Center, is my first solo exhibition at a museum.
In past works, I have channeled fluid states to produce artworks on movement and energy. Here I plan to make an all-new work with a particular focus on spirals and rotations, which, if we trace the history of modern art, have been the subjects of any number of artworks that include Marcel Duchamp’s Nude Descending a Staircase, Vladimir Tatlin’s Monument to the Third International, Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty, and the sculptures of Tony Cragg.

I believe that creators must have thought about energy and movement in their modes of expression, many of which continue to roll on in the present day. I hope that this exhibition will be an exploration that contributes to this enduring discussion of energy and movement.