Ryuichi Sakamoto, one of Japan's most distinguished artists, has pursued a broad range of creative activities transcending the boundaries of music for over fifty years. A major solo exhibition of his installation works, "Seeing Sound, Hearing Time," has opened at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo.

Based on exhibition concepts that Sakamoto left to the museum before his passing, the exhibition features twelve large-scale installations, each created in collaboration with six internationally renowned artists. The exhibition's themes reflect Sakamoto's long-standing interests in his creative work: sound and time.

Including works that address noh drama and the Great East Japan Earthquake, the exhibition offers insight into the sensibilities of a "global Sakamoto" who could only have emerged from Japan.

Upon entering the exhibition and passing through a dark, narrow corridor after the introductory text, visitors encounter a water basin spanning a room over 20 meters in length, with three screens standing within it.

The exhibition's first work is «TIME TIME» by Ryuichi Sakamoto + Shiro Takatani. This new piece was created specifically for this exhibition, based on the stage work "TIME" that the two artists premiered in Amsterdam in 2021.

Shiro Takatani is an artist known for numerous works incorporating performance and as a member of the boundary-crossing art collective Dumb Type.

Since their first collaboration on Sakamoto's opera "LIFE a ryuichi sakamoto opera 1999" (1999), he and Sakamoto maintained a close relationship, resulting in five of the twelve works in this exhibition being their collaborations.

«TIME TIME» explores the question "What is time?" through the form of mugen noh (dream noh). As viewers watch, the silhouette of a woman playing the sho (a traditional Japanese mouth organ) appears from the left, slowly walking across all three screens. This is followed by readings from Natsume Soseki's "Ten Nights of Dreams" and the noh play "Kantan," accompanied by various images of urban crowds and flowers with English and Chinese subtitles.

Like in dream noh, different temporalities intersect—a moment and eternity, the instant of falling asleep and a hundred years of dreaming—challenging our understanding of "time" and "existence." The work also symbolically depicts the Japanese concept of impermanence, showing humanity's struggle against overwhelming natural forces before eventually succumbing to them.

The second work, «water state 1» (2013), is another collaboration with Takatani. In a serene space, several stones are placed like a rock garden on a black floor against white walls, with a square black platform holding water at its center.

Suddenly, water drops from the ceiling, creating beautiful ripples in the basin. Multiple ripples gradually appear throughout the water's surface, creating a meditative experience for viewers.

The timing and location of the water drops and ripples are actually determined by precipitation data from weather satellites monitoring the area around the venue.

Sakamoto was known as an artist with strong environmental consciousness, particularly in Japan where he was also known as an activist who frequently spoke out about environmental issues in the media. His musical works included pieces like "Glacier" (from the album "Out of Noise") which incorporated recordings of glaciers collapsing and melting, and his installation works often addressed environmental themes we typically overlook, such as pieces generating sound from biological data of trees worldwide or converting wind speed and direction sensor values into music.

Other collaborations with Takatani include «IS YOUR TIME» (2011/2017), which transforms a piano from Miyagi Agricultural High School damaged in the 2024 Great East Japan Earthquake into a "piano tuned by nature," «LIFE-fluid, invisible, inaudible» (2007), which reconstructs Sakamoto's opera "LIFE" through video projections in nine water tanks with fog effects, and «async-immersion tokyo» (2023), an evolved version of the video work that gained attention at "Ambient Kyoto" in 2024.

Additionally, in the museum's courtyard, Fujiko Nakaya, an artist known for her fog sculptures, joins these two artists as a special collaborative artist separate from the six main collaborators to create LIFE-WELL TOKYO, Fog Sculpture #47662 (appears every 30 minutes).

Beyond Takatani and Nakaya, the exhibition features collaborations with Daito Manabe, Carsten Nicolai, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Zakkubalan, and Toshio Iwai.

«Sensing Streams 2024-invisible, inaudible (MOT version)» (2024), a collaboration with Daito Manabe—founder of Rhizomatiks and active individually as an artist and DJ—is displayed in the garden in front of the museum shop, accessible without an admission ticket. Created for an art festival themed around "cities and nature," the work features a 16-meter display along the wall showing real-time data of imperceptible electromagnetic waves from mobile phones, WiFi, digital broadcasting, and FM radio, collected by antennas installed outside the museum.

Carsten Nicolai, who collaborated with Sakamoto on music albums and live tours under the name "Alva Noto," presents a video work adapting Jules Verne's science fiction novel "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea," accompanied by music from Sakamoto's final album "12."

Thai film director Apichatpong Weerasethakul, who won the Palme d'Or at the 63rd Cannes Film Festival with "Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives"—a first for Thai cinema—had previously collaborated with Sakamoto on a VR work for the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation and served as a jury member alongside him for a short film competition using music from Sakamoto's album "async."

This album "async" was conceived as a "soundtrack for an imaginary Tarkovsky film," with Sakamoto playing "asynchronous music" as he felt it. Sakamoto intended the album to be "heard three-dimensionally," and besides the competition entries, artists including Shiro Takatani, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, and Zakkubalan (an artist duo based in New York, Sakamoto's second home) created installations based on this album.

Weerasethakul's piece combines two tracks from the album with footage captured by small cameras given to people close to him.

Meanwhile, Zakkubalan's work displays fragmentary images of Sakamoto's New York studio, living room, and garden through 24 "small glowing windows" (actually iPhones and iPads), accompanied by a mix of environmental sounds and music.

While the exhibition offers various collaborations with different artists, perhaps the most emotionally resonant piece for fans of Sakamoto as a musician is the final work, Ryuichi Sakamoto × Toshio Iwai's «Music Plays Images × Images Play Music».

Based on MIDI data of Sakamoto's piano performances archived by Iwai, this work controls an electronic piano while projecting life-sized footage of Sakamoto performing, creating an experience as if watching him perform live.

The exhibition also displays numerous books that inspired Sakamoto during album production, photographs, notes, musical scores, and magazines featuring interviews with him.

While "musician" is perhaps the most commonly used term to describe Ryuichi Sakamoto, those who lived in his era would know him as an ever-evolving cultural icon who appeared everywhere—from television and magazines to street posters and the internet—both as a member of YMO and as an individual. However, some might have found him difficult to grasp due to his incredibly broad range of activities and interests.

Through experiencing this exhibition featuring collaborations with six artists who knew Sakamoto well, visitors can trace the contours of his thinking.

This is an exhibition to be appreciated quietly and thoughtfully, remembering the late master. While there are twelve works, most are video installations with considerable running times, so it's recommended to visit with plenty of time to spare.

To coincide with this notable exhibition, the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo has established a special shop adjacent to the regular museum shop, exclusively featuring items related to this exhibition.

Ryuichi Sakamoto | Seeing Sound, Hearing Time

Saturday, December 2024, 12 – Sunday, March 21, 2025

Opening Hours: 10:00-18:00 (Last entry 30 minutes before closing)

Closed: Mondays (except January 1 and February 13), December 2-January 24, January 12, February 28

Venue: Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, Exhibition Galleries 1F/B2F and other spaces

Admission: Adults: ¥2,400 (¥1,920) / University/College Students, Seniors 65 and over: ¥1,700 (¥1,360) / Junior High/High School Students: ¥960 (¥760)/ Elementary School Students and younger: Free