Santander, Spain
In “Entanglements” (on view through September 6, 2026), Yuko Mohri investigates the interconnectedness of objects, energies, and acoustics through eight ingenious site-responsive installations. Taking her cue from artists such as Marcel Duchamp and Alexander Calder, she assembles household items and musical instruments, and links them to electronic circuits. Her kinetic installations respond to gravity, magnetism, heat, and humidity, while environmental factors such as air, dust, and debris transform the ensembles into complex ecosystems.
Mohri responds to the light-infused gallery at Centro Botín—designed by Renzo Piano to overlook Santander Bay—with new works and reconfigured older works. Each element is contingent on a larger interdependent network. The first installation, Piano Solo: Costa Quebrada (2026), consists of an automated piano, speakers, and microphones. The piano’s keys are triggered by acoustic stimuli from a video recording of Santander’s coastline, but because the piano is limited to its 88 keys and 12-tone scale, it translates those stimuli into an approximate score, imitating the sea’s soundscape without fully capturing its natural variations.
An adjacent work, You Locked Me Up in a Grave, You Owe Me at Least the Peace of a Grave (2018), brings together a rotating spiral staircase, speakers, and sound sources, linked to a computerized system. The staircase, which references a planet spinning on its axis, also acknowledges Vladimir Tatlin’s Monument to the Third International (1919–20). The title comes from the French revolutionary Louis-Auguste Blanqui, voicing his anger at the noise he was subjected to in a prison cell when writing his final book, Eternity by the Stars (1872). Blanqui’s writings explore notions of circularity, which reside at the core of Mohri’s practice, thereby constituting a meeting of minds across centuries.
Flutter (2018/25) focuses on an aquarium housing goggle-eyed black goldfish. External sensors detect their movements, generating a chain reaction across the work’s multiple components to activate the automatic performance of a reed organ. Here, Mohri takes her inspiration from Nam June Paik’s Video Fish (1975), as well as the experimental practice of John Cage. Magnetic Organ (2004–ongoing), one of Mohri’s earliest pieces, evokes the principles of chaos theory through wire antennas that interact via an electromagnetic field. In this work, as in many of Mohri’s constructions, the resultant acoustic feedback is directed by the situation, rather than by the artist herself.
The sense of the gallery as a laboratory hosting scientific experiments is most prevalent in Decomposition (2021–ongoing). Here, decomposing pieces of fruit—two apples, an orange, and two plump Spanish lemons—are connected to sensors that detect subtle internal changes as they rot and dehydrate. The data is converted into tonal changes and energy, powering a backlit panel divided into five sections, each linked to a fruit and modulated by its individual process of decay.
In I/O (2011–ongoing), snake-like rolls of suspended paper oscillate to collect dust and debris from the floor. A sensor reads and converts this detritus into electrical signals, thereby activating an assembly of objects—dusters, lightbulbs, blinds, and musical instruments. I/O, which has been shown in multiple locations, is always installed to respond to the specific conditions of each environment. The title aptly refers to “input” and “output,” describing a system that accumulates and reactivates lost traces, transforming them into a complex, interdependent whole incorporating mechanics, sound, and visuals.
Mohri’s longstanding preoccupation with water is epitomized in Moré Moré (Leaky): Variations (2018–ongoing). Inspired by Tokyo subway staff fixing water leaks through ad hoc improvisation, the series consists of water channeled through pipes and connected to objects hanging by nylon threads. In this iteration, Moré Moré (Leaky) consists of three distinct groupings: an array of metallic kitchen utensils, a drying rack from which rubber gloves and clothespins spring to action, and a set of cleaning brushes striking a cymbal. In a companion piece, Moré Moré (Leaky): Fountain (2025)—sited in a niche jutting over Santander Bay—water pumped up into a suspended transparent boot reaches a crescendo, then spills into a pool on the floor.
Rooted in the precepts of the Fluxus movement, with a nod to the absurd, Mohri’s practice harnesses seemingly invisible forces to stimulate random objects normally activated by the human hand. Her installations in Centro Botín’s pristine, glass-fronted gallery assume a bright, clinical presence, interspersed with snatches of humor and wit. But when dusk descends and the bay darkens, a magical transformation occurs. As the space fills with ambient abstract sounds, the work takes on a spectral fragility, laying claim to a distinctive kinetic alchemy as lightbulbs flicker spookily, feather dusters quiver on the floor, rubber gloves wave from a distance, and the beautiful, multi-finned black fish swim into oblivion.
