Yuko Mohri's 'In Concert' Transforms Barbican Curve with Decomposing Matter and Broken Things

Yuko Mohri's exhibition 'In Concert' at The Barbican Curve, London, runs from 1 October to 24 January. The show activates the crescent-shaped gallery with two installations forming 'Decomposition' (all works 2026, reiterating ongoing series). A quartet of globular lamps, salvaged from a refuse store in the surrounding Barbican, flicker unpredictably. A strand of wiring leads to a wooden table displaying fruit pierced by clips wired to circuitry that converts moisture levels into light and sound signals, nodding to Joseph Beuys's 1985 'Capri Battery'. Wood-encased hi-fi speakers play drawn-out, reversed-woodwind notes, reminiscent of Mohri's previous work with Ryuichi Sakamoto. Around the corner, 'Moré Moré [Leaky]' features cymbals clanging from water flow, a triangle clinking, and fans blowing on wiring ('Urban Mining'). A bus-red firehose drips into a lampshade bucket; a suspended bell rings mutedly. Water leaks through stacked bathroom sinks. The assemblages reiterate disorder as inevitable, reflecting contemporary UK life post-austerity and Brexit. Mohri developed the show during intermittent residency at the Barbican since May, reconstituting the building's decrepitude into a virtue. The exhibition is the best artistic statement about contemporary London, a faulty, disjointed network of things in disrepair.