M WOODS is proud to present the largest and most comprehensive survey exhibition to date devoted to Japanese composer and artist Ryuichi Sakamoto. The exhibition is Sakamoto’s first institutional solo show in China, and centres around eight key large-scale works and sound installations that redefine how we experience an album of music or an art exhibition, while proposing different ways of understanding the world through sound and technology. 

Ryuichi Sakamoto believes that technology is the key to remaining aware of the world in its entirety. Since the late 1970s, he has played a key role in redefining the intersection between sound and art in Japan and internationally. From his cinematic scores, for which he was awarded both an Oscar and a Grammy in 1988, and his influence on the development of electronic music through the Japanese band Yellow Magic Orchestra (YMO) to his current activist work on climate change, Sakamoto continues to radically transform the way we think about creative practice and the potential of art and music. 

As the title "seeing sound, hearing time" implies, this exhibition constructs a series of multi-sensory spaces for the audience, using audiovisual language to present and describe the intangible existence that is difficult for people to perceive in life. In each exhibition hall, Ryuichi Sakamoto and his co-artists centered on the concept of "installation music", creating an "environment" for the audience to experience and share music and sound in the physical space of the exhibition hall. 

“It is a great pleasure to be invited to exhibit almost all of my sound installations in China for the first time. Through my work, I hope people in China can enjoy the boundary between sound and noise, between sound and silence, and the interstices of sound and image.” 

--- Sakamoto Ryuichi  

Ryuichi Sakamoto + Shiro Takatani

LIFE - fluid, invisible, inaudible...

2007/2021

Installation
24ch audio, 12 acrylic water tanks with ultrasonic fog generators and video projectors

Original Development: Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media [YCAM]

Original version (9 Water Tank Version): Commissioned by Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media [YCAM]


Beijing version (12 Water Tank Version): Commissioned by M WOODS Museum


A majority of the materials in this installation have been modified from the original opera LIFE, which premiered in 1999.

Photo: Ryuichi Maruo (YCAM)
Courtesy of Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media [YCAM]