iBarbican CentreCity of London
Japanese artist Yuko Mohri transforms The Curve with a site-responsive commission exploring states of flux and acts of repair via light, sound and kinetic sculpture featuring Barbican objects.
A red fire hose drips into a lampshade turned bucket, and a tiny bell, tugged by wires, hops off the floor and rings faintly. ArtReview's critic called it "the world's worst fire alarm". Most of the show works like that: leaks, drips and small accidents rigged to make sound.
Yuko Mohri built it during a residency at the Barbican, using lamps and objects salvaged from the building's stores, basements and car parks. At the entrance, old Barbican streetlamps are wired to pieces of fruit, and the fruits' changing moisture sets the light and sound, so the work shifts as they rot. The far end of The Curve's long, curved gallery is given over to Moré Moré (Leaky), modelled on the buckets-and-tubing repairs Tokyo subway staff improvise for leaks.
It's free, and ArtReview called it "the best artistic statement about contemporary London". Expect noise rather than quiet: speakers along the walls hum with slowed and reversed woodwind.
The fruit-powered streetlamps
Look for the low wooden table of fruit pierced with clips at the entrance; its moisture levels drive the flicker of the salvaged lamps overhead.
The water-driven cymbals
In Moré Moré (Leaky), cymbals clang as water pumps through hanging tubes, and a triangle held up by a spoon clinks along.
The stacked sinks
Water drains down through the plugholes of a stack of bathroom sinks; ArtReview compared it to a rusty Donald Judd.
The shadows on the walls
Small hot lamps on the floor throw the tubing and wiring onto the white walls like shadow puppets, and drips run across the floor under an umbrella.
You want a quiet gallery: it's full of dripping, clanging and humming speakers by design.