At Tanya Bonakdar Gallery in New York’s Chelsea district, a solo exhibition by Yuko Mohri titled Falling Water Given is currently on view. The exhibition presents key works from Mohri’s practice through her representative series Moré Moré (Leaky) and Decomposition.

In these works, water drips, sounds emerge autonomously, and the irreversible transformation of decaying fruit is converted into faint electrical currents that are rendered audible and visible. While highly conceptual, the installations—intertwined with sound and light—possess a deep sense of meditation. The subtle changes occurring within familiar living things such as humans and fruit extend outward to urban infrastructure and the surrounding environment, ultimately guiding thought toward a fundamental structure in which everything on Earth exists in interrelated cycles.

Rather than attempting to manipulate or control the world, Mohri’s works quietly attend to the processes through which phenomena simply “come to be,” gently revealing the cycles woven by nature, the artificial, life, and time.

This exhibition marks Yuko Mohri’s first solo presentation at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery and her second major exhibition in New York. In recent years, Mohri has presented a series of significant exhibitions in Japan and abroad, including Compose, the Japan Pavilion solo exhibition at the 60th Venice Biennale (April–November 2024); Jam Session: Ishibashi Foundation Collection × Yuko Mohri — On Physis at the Artizon Museum (November 2024–February 2025), organized in collaboration with the Ishibashi Foundation Collection; and Entanglements (September 2025–January 2026) at Pirelli HangarBicocca in Milan.

Moving fluidly across natural phenomena, the transformations of living matter, urban environments, and questions of perception, Mohri presents the universal theme of circulation in a distinctly contemporary form. Through this approach, she has emerged as one of the most compelling Japanese artists working today. Falling Water Given demonstrates with remarkable clarity and intensity the current point to which her thinking and artistic practice have reached.

Leakage, Resonance, and Cycles of Becoming

Upon entering the gallery, one is first enveloped by a multitude of sounds. In rhythm with the steady pulse of a pump sending water through the system, triangles, cymbals, drums, watering cans, and rubber gloves—suspended from three large frames—strike against pipes and components each time the water is released, producing an array of tones. Moré Moré (Leaky): Falling Water Given #7, #8, #9 is at once an installation, a work of sound art, and a piece of conceptual art. This hybridity reflects Yuko Mohri’s approach: she avoids being bound to a single genre and instead embraces an attitude of surrendering to constantly shifting phenomena and situations. [1]

This series takes inspiration from Marcel Duchamp’s The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even (1915–1923). The exhibition title Falling Water Given also derives from Duchamp’s Étant donnés (1969). In Duchamp’s work, viewers peer through a peephole to glimpse the nude body of a woman and a waterfall beyond. This act of looking resonates with the phenomenon of “leaking water” in Mohri’s installations, creating a layered dialogue between the two works and generating a new field of expression.  

In addition, the Moré Moré series was also inspired by scenes of water leaking in the Tokyo subway system, and photographs documenting these original observations are displayed in the exhibition. Shown alongside them is Moré Moré (Leaky): Sieves, a work created in direct response to the ideas and motives of Marcel Duchamp.

Through the combination of visual stimuli and sound, viewers are invited to move beyond the structures of everyday life and the city, toward an awareness that water, matter, and life are in constant circulation. The works ultimately evoke the larger systems of planetary cycles themselves. Rather than attempting to control phenomena, Yuko Mohri’s practice reveals the circulation of nature, the artificial, and living systems through an attitude of simply observing what unfolds as it happens.

On the second floor, the Decomposition series unfolds. Here, “the faint electrical currents generated during the decay of fruit” are made audible through synthesizers. Electrodes inserted into the fruit detect electrical signals—variations in resistance caused by the breakdown of water and sugars within—and these signals are converted by computer into electronic sounds. Light responds in parallel: its intensity and color subtly shift according to the state of each fruit.

The resulting space, shaped by sound and light, evokes a meditative atmosphere. Yuko Mohri references the tradition of Western still-life painting in her depiction of the fruits, while simultaneously transforming the flat pictorial plane into a form reminiscent of Buddhist painting—drawing specifically on her abstracted interpretation of the Nine Stages of Decay (Kusōzu), a subject often depicting Ono no Komachi, which traces the process from death to skeleton. [2] In doing so, she creates a dialogue between Eastern and Western artistic expressions. Through this interplay, the individual phenomena of fruit, light, and sound circulate, allowing viewers to sense the constant, planetary cycles in which all things on Earth are endlessly interconnected.

Artistic Development in New York

Yuko Mohri first undertook an extended stay in New York in 2015, supported by a grant from the Asian Cultural Council which sought to support Asian artists. During this approximately six-month residency, she created works including From A, which used fragments of a map of New York to overlay the structure of urban space with individual perspectives. This piece was later presented in her 2016 solo exhibition Yuko Mohri: Form of the Daze at Jane Lombard Gallery.

At this time, Mohri’s interest in urban infrastructure laid the groundwork for the development of her later signature Moré Moré series. Her attentive observation of everyday phenomena in the city gradually expanded into a focus on the cycles of nature, forming the conceptual basis for her ongoing exploration of circulation. [3]

During her residency, Mohri visited the Philadelphia Museum of Art from New York, where she encountered works by Marcel Duchamp, including Étant donnés (1969) and The Large Glass (1915–1923). Mohri’s respect for the accidental processes generated by humans, materials, and natural phenomena has been a consistent aspect of her practice since the early stages of her career. Her encounter with Duchamp’s works resonated with these interests and became one of the important points of reference in considering the structure and conceptual framework of her own work. [4]

Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, founded in Soho in 1994, and relocated to Chelsea in 1998, is a prestigious international gallery representing numerous artists who explore “environment and phenomena,” including Olafur Eliasson. Mohri’s Grand Prix win at the 2015 Nissan Art Award, along with her 2016 residency at the Victoria and Albert Museum and participation in biennials worldwide, drew the gallery’s attention. In January 2020, her affiliation with Tanya Bonakdar Gallery was officially announced. Her practice of incorporating magnetism and gravity aligns seamlessly with the gallery’s focus on integrating natural phenomena and environmental change into artworks, making her an ideal partner.

Music has also played a significant role in shaping Yuko Mohri’s artistic thinking. She resonates with John Cage’s statement, “I do not compose,” preferring not to control sound but to allow it to emerge naturally—letting sounds be what they are. Live electronic music, including the works of Cage and David Tudor’s Rainforest, has also served as a point of departure for her sound expressions and installations. This attentiveness to the subtle changes in cities, nature, sound, matter, and life forms the foundation for her work, providing the structural basis for the chains of phenomena and cycles depicted in her installations. [5][6][7]

A Contemporary Perspective Reflecting Phenomena and Circulation

Yuko Mohri’s Falling Water Given transcends the boundaries of installation and sound art, offering viewers an experience that quietly expands perception toward the circulations of cities, nature, and the Earth itself. The dripping of water, the subtle electrical currents produced by decaying fruit, and the interplay of light and sound evoke both chance and a sense of order, revealing the inherent power of phenomena. Through her work, Mohri visualizes the delicate cycles of nature, life, urban environments, and matter, allowing us to recognize the value of attentive observation of phenomena.

Her extended stay in New York, encounters with Marcel Duchamp, intellectual engagement with John Cage, and collaborations with international galleries have all expanded her practice to a perspective that transcends urban and cultural boundaries. By listening closely to chance occurrences and the circulation of matter, her works create a space in which viewers themselves may feel intimately connected to the world around them.

Falling Water Given not only clarifies Yuko Mohri’s position in contemporary art but also invites us to become aware of the circulations and interconnections of all things on Earth. After experiencing the exhibition, our perceptions and senses may resonate subtly with the rhythms of urban and natural processes, allowing us to perceive the world anew.