Kanagawa-born artist Yuko Mohri, known for her installations and sculptures centering on “phenomena” that continually change depending on various conditions such as their environment, was chosen to represent Japan at the 60th Venice Biennale, which will be held from April 20 to November 24. 2024. Mohri, who lives and works in Tokyo, has recently expanded her practice to encompass video and photography. His exhibition at the Japanese pavilion will focus on the crisis as a catalyst for human creativity.
Mohri in a statement quoted the efforts of two young climate change activists who threw tomato soup on the glass protecting Van Gogh’s 1888 Sunflowers at the National Gallery in London in 2022 as inspiration and also highlighted Tokyo railway workers’ innovative use of mundane objects to plug leaks at various train stations. She also mentioned the 2019 flood of Venice and the Covid-19 crisis beginning the following year as catalysts. “Sensing the beginning of a new era of responding to global challenges,” she said, “I want to present an innovative vision that opens a new path to the future.”
Organized by the Japan Foundation, the Japan Pavilion will be curated by Sook-Kyung Lee, Senior Curator of International Art at the Tate Modern in London. Lee, artistic director of the fourteenth Gwangju Biennale, which opened in April, will take on the role of director from the Whitworth Art Gallery at the University of Manchester.
“I’ve admired Yuko’s work for some time, finding her choice of everyday, mundane materials and spatial configuration very interesting,” Lee said. “Sound and music seem almost integrated or integrated into their given spaces, rather than taking center stage or overly exposed.” Lee praised Yuko’s contribution to the recently opened Gwangju Biennale as a “meaningful” and “quietly powerful” work that “perfectly suited the theme ‘soft and weak as water’. His work makes us see not just objects but their surroundings and listen to not just the intended sound, but its mood and voids,” Lee continued. “I am convinced that Yuko will create an inspiring work for the Japan Pavilion in Venice in 2022.”
