Ryuichi Sakamoto
seeing sound, hearing time
Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo
Through March 30, 2025
seeing sound, hearing time – Exhibition Poster
Courtesy of the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo
A composer and an artist, RYUICHI SAKAMOTO (1952-2023) continuously paved the way for his era through his diverse and cutting-edge artistic activities. Since the 2000s, he devoted himself to creating three-dimensional sound installations in exhibition spaces, which he developed and realized in collaboration with various artists. Focusing entirely on large-scale installation works, this first comprehensive exhibition in Japan looks back on Sakamoto's pioneering, experimental creative artworks, including some of his most well-known previous pieces, and new works that he envisioned for this particular occasion before his passing, which are dynamically constructed in and around the museum building.
Ryuichi Sakamoto was born in Tokyo in 1952. Making his debut in 1978 with the album Thousand Knives, Sakamoto's diverse résumé includes pioneering electronic works in the legendary techno group Yellow Magic Orchestra, producing pop albums and numerous classical compositions, two operas, and nearly 45 original film/TV scores. His film soundtracks have won prestigious awards, including an Academy Award, two Golden Globes, a Grammy, and many more. As an activist for many decades, Sakamoto's efforts focused on environmental conservation and world peace, including founding the forest preservation organization “more trees”, and the "Tohoku Youth Orchestra" to support the victims of the Tohoku Earthquake through music. Ryuichi Sakamoto also made considerable contributions to the art world with his work exhibited in galleries and museums worldwide. Recently, M WOODS, in China, presented the largest and most comprehensive collection spanning 30 years devoted to Sakamoto's artworks in various media, centering around 8 large-scale sound installations (Beijing, 2021; Cheng-du, 2023). He continued to cross borders into the art world even after death, with the ground-breaking mixed reality concert piece, "KAGAMI," touring New York, Manchester, London, and many future locations. Ryuichi Sakamoto passed away in March 2023 at the age of 71.
Collaboration artists | Shiro Takatani, Daito Manabe, Carsten Nicolai, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Zakkubalan, Toshio Iwai
Special collaboration | Fujiko Nakaya
Guest Curator: Sachiko Namba
Curator: Tomoe Moriyama (Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo)
Assistant Curator: Mio Harada (Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo)
MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART TOKYO
4-1-1 Miyoshi, Koto-ku, Tokyo 135-0022
Ryuichi Sakamoto | seeing sound, hearing time
Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo
December 21, 2024 - March 30, 2025
