Viewers Hang Onto Ryuichi Sakamoto’s Every Note

At Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, the late composer’s sound installations commingle with restagings and responses

BY Charlene K. Lau in Exhibition Reviews | 04 FEB 25

Showcasing the creative dexterity and range of the work of the late composer, musician and artist Ryuichi Sakamoto, ‘seeing sound, hearing time’ at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo is an exhibition of three-dimensional sound installations, a number of which are restagings or posthumous responses made collaboratively with figures such as artist Shiro Takatani and filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul. While Sakamoto is widely celebrated for his contributions to pop music (he co-founded the electronic band Yellow Magic Orchestra in 1978) and movies (he scored Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence, 1983, and The Last Emperor, 1987, among many others), this exhibition focuses on his artworks to reveal a lesser-known – albeit still music-driven – aspect of his creative practice.

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Ryuichi Sakamoto and Shiro Takatani, IS YOUR TIME, 2024, ‘seeing sound, hearing time’, 2024–25, exhibition view. Courtesy: © 2024 KAB Inc, Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo; photograph: Kazuo Fukunaga

The elegant yet melancholic works on display feel abundant despite their spare aesthetics. IS YOUR TIME (2017/24), an installation by Sakamoto and Takatani, features an out-of-tune piano rescued from Miyagi Prefecture Agricultural High School after the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami. Described by Sakamoto, in a 2018 interview with The Brooklyn Rail, as having been ‘tuned by nature’, the piano sits at the centre of the gallery in a square, inky pool of water. An overhead screen – the only light in the room – displays a video of falling snow, illuminating the instrument in the moody darkness. Every now and again, a key plays, then fades, leaving viewers hanging on to hear the next note.

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Ryuichi Sakamoto and Toshio Iwai, Music Plays Images X Images Play Music, 1996–1997/2024, ‘seeing sound, hearing time’, 2024–25, exhibition view. Courtesy: © 2024 KAB Inc, Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo; photograph: Ryuichi Maruo

But the energetic, alchemical nature of Sakamoto’s oeuvre arguably found its finest form during the press preview, when dancer Min Tanaka performed one of his ba-odori – an improvised, site-responsive choreography – in dialogue with LIFE–WELL TOKYO, Fog Sculpture #47662 (2024), an immersive installation by Fujiko Nakaya with lighting by Takatani and sound by Sakamoto. While onlookers crowded the balcony and crammed along a staircase, a cloud of mist filled the museum’s outdoor sunken terrace as a piercing sound shattered the silence. Tanaka, barefoot and suited, appeared amidst the haze, his arms raised as if surrendering to or greeting the sky above. He intermittently disappeared as the breeze shifted the fog, and resurfaced crouching, lying down or extending his arms skyward. Literally and figuratively engulfing, the fog – that most formless of sculptural materials – drifted over my notebook page, intermingling with my breath. The performance was such a transfixing memorial to Sakamoto that an entire review could be dedicated to it.

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Min Tanaka, Locus Focus at Ryuichi Sakamoto, Fujiko Nakaya and Shiro Takatani, LIFE–WELL TOKYO, Fog Sculpture #47662, 2024. Courtesy: Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo; photograph: Itaru Hirama

Afterwards, I floated towards Music Plays Images × Images Play Music (1996–97/2024), the re-creation of a collaborative performance by Sakamoto with interactive media artist Toshio Iwai, who developed a software that generated images from the notes Sakamoto played on his Yamaha MIDI Grand. Set up like an intimate private recital, the installation features rows of chairs facing Sakamoto’s piano, onto which a video of him playing is projected through a sheet of glass. The work, which takes its audio from Sakamoto’s award-winning performance at Ars Electronica in 1997, has a hologram-like appearance, with blue inverted triangles visualizing the sound emanating from the keyboard. While it verges on gimmicky, the piece serves as an apt marker of the time in which it was conceived. I try to identify the musical excerpts, at once familiar and dreamlike, but, like the fog, they elude me.

Laying out the breadth of Sakamoto’s vision beyond his contributions to the fields of music and film, ‘seeing sound, hearing time’ leaves space for viewers to contemplate the restrained intensity of his aural and visual compositions, which explore temporality not with logic but with poetry. Sakamoto possessed a true understanding of contemporaneity, adopting new technologies of expression to produce innovative music and sound art that we can still see, hear and feel in our souls.

Ryuichi Sakamoto, ‘seeing sound, hearing time’ is on view at Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo until 30 March 

Main image: Ryuichi Sakamoto and Shiro Takatani, LIFE–fluid, invisible, inaudible..., 2007, ‘seeing sound, hearing time’, 2024–25, exhibition view. Courtesy: © 2024 KAB Inc, Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo; photograph: Ryuichi Maruo

Charlene K. Lau is an art historian, critic, and curator who has held fellowships at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, Parsons School of Design, The New School and Performa Biennial. Her writing has been published in Artforum, TheAtlantic.com, the Brooklyn Rail, Canadian Art, Frieze, Fashion Theory and Journal of Curatorial Studies, among others.

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