iHamburger BahnhofMoabit
Ryuichi Sakamoto: seeing sound, hearing time
The first major European retrospective of Ryuichi Sakamoto: seven works in five large-scale installations, opening during Berlin Art Week.
More in Berlin
The first installation is a school piano wrecked by the 2011 tsunami, standing in a pool of water under a screen that snows onto it. Nobody sits at it. A metal attachment presses the keys, driven by live data from earthquakes around the world.
This is Sakamoto's first major retrospective in Europe: seven works in five installations across about 1,500 square metres of the Rieckhallen, made with Shiro Takatani, Carsten Nicolai and Apichatpong Weerasethakul. The walls are black and the floor is polished until it mirrors the screens like a lake. In async-immersion you stand before an 18-metre LED wall of misty forest while glitched piano plays through a 14-channel sound system.
In the taz, Julian Weber called the staging Zen-like, but wrote that its calm surface also numbs you with sheer technology. Entry is €16 (€8 concessions) and covers the collection too. It's wheelchair accessible, and open until 20:00 on Thursdays through November.
Editor's pick
A school piano wrecked by the 2011 tsunami stands in a pool of water, its keys pressed by live earthquake data. In the taz, Julian Weber called the staging Zen-like, but numbing in its sheer technology.
Look for
IS YOUR TIME (2017/2024)
Look for the tsunami-damaged school piano in its pool of water, keys pressed by a metal device fed live earthquake data while snow falls on the screen above.
async-immersion (2023)
An 18-metre LED wall shows a misty forest on one side, and on the other its light drawn out into streaks that are scanned away pixel by pixel.
TIME, TIME (2024)
Three large projections of dancer Min Tanaka and sho player Mayumi Miyata performing on a stage of water.
ENDO EXO
Sakamoto's piano plays over footage of stuffed birds and amphibians from Berlin's Natural History Museum, made with Carsten Nicolai.
async-first light (2017) and Durmiente (2021)
Apichatpong Weerasethakul's images of film audiences, streets, animals and people sleeping, with a companion film featuring Tilda Swinton.
Good for
- Dates
- Going Solo
- Out-Of-Town Guests
Skip if
You dislike dark rooms full of screens: every work here is an audiovisual installation in black-walled halls.
Also at Hamburger Bahnhof
On now nearby
Nearby
Image credits
9
- Ryuichi Sakamoto: seeing sound, hearing time© The Estate of Ryuichi Sakamoto / KAB Inc, Photo: Jacopo La Forgia
- ZUGvögel – Collection in MotionCourtesy of Museum für Naturkunde
- DINOSAURS! – Age of the Giant LizardsPhoto: Verena Brüning
- Carola Lampe: Tell Me What To See© Carola Lampe
- Hamburger BahnhofA.Savin, Wikimedia Commons
- Museum für NaturkundeJörg Zägel / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
- Sammlung BorosJean-Pierre Dalbéra / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0
- Fotografiska BerlinShaysd / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
- KW Institute for Contemporary ArtJörg Zägel / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0