Yuko Mohri: On Physis: Artizon Museum, Tokyo

The Artizon Museum, Ishibashi Foundation, presents Jam Session: The Ishibashi Foundation Collection × MOHRI Yuko–On Physis.

Since the museum opened in 2020, The Artizon Museum has held an annual Jam Session exhibition, a collaboration combining works from the Ishibashi Foundation Collection with works by a contemporary artist. For the fifth Jam Session, they have invited Mohri Yuko to take part.

Mohri’s installations and sculptures use magnetism, electricity, air and dust, water and temperature to make visitors aware of the subtle fluctuations of the spaces in which she exhibits. The word “Physis”, in the title of the exhibition, is an ancient Greek term translated as “Nature” or “Essence.” It was used in early Greek philosophy to address what the basic principle behind everything might be, a fundamental philosophical question that still exists today.

In this sense, “Physis” was a central concern of early Greek philosophy. The surviving fragments of this ancient philosophy were later discovered under the title “On Nature” and used to represent philosophical interest in movement and ongoing motion: the birth, transformation, and disappearance of entities. Mohri’s work overlaps with their interest in ever-present fluid change.

For Mohri’s first large-scale exhibition in Japan, the museum has brought together both new and old works, and arranged them in conversation with works from the Ishibashi Foundation collection.

Installation view of “Jam Session: The Ishibashi Foundation Collection × MOHRI Yuko–On Physis” 2024, Artizon Museum, Ishibashi Foundation.

Photo: kugeyasuhide