Ryuichi Sakamoto+Shiro Takatani, async-immersion tokyo, 2024. Installation view of the exhibition Ryuichi Sakamoto/seeing sound, hearing time
at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo (MOT), 2024. ©2024 KAB Inc. Photo by Takeshi Asano
M+ is presenting Ryuichi Sakamoto | seeing sound, hearing time, celebrating the legacy of composer, producer, and artist Ryuichi Sakamoto (Japanese, 1952–2023). Sakamoto is renowned for his award-winning film scores, wide-ranging collaborations, and exploratory spirit. The exhibition features the expansive, site-specific installation async–immersion (2023), which is being presented free of charge in The Studio on Level B2 at M+ from Saturday, 14 February to Sunday, 5 July 2026.
Co-created with artist Shiro Takatani, the installation is a three-dimensional representation of Sakamoto’s personal album async, configured for a gallery space. A series of works related to Sakamoto’s creations, along with public programmes such as screenings, are presented in the Found Space, Moving Image Centre and at the Grand Stair throughout the exhibition period, providing deeper insights into Sakamoto’s enduring influence.
Ryuichi Sakamoto+Shiro Takatani, async-immersion tokyo, 2024. Installation view of the exhibition Ryuichi Sakamoto/seeing sound, hearing time
at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo (MOT), 2024. ©2024 KAB Inc. Photo by Takeshi Asano
An audiovisual journey with async–immersion
async–immersion (2023) is a collaboration between Ryuichi Sakamoto and artist Shiro Takatani (Japanese, born 1963). Part of Sakamoto’s ‘installation music’ series, the composer’s work is paired with Takatani’s three-dimensional representation of his music, filling the gallery with dynamic sound and image.
This installation work’s immersive sonic experience was inspired by Sakamoto’s solo album async (2017), which he described as ‘some of the most personal music I have ever created’. The album weaves together various sound recordings to evoke multiple places and times existing in a state of continuous flux. Here, ‘async’ means non-synchronous or out of time: Sound and image unfold independently, like the ebb and flow of tides, creating a parallel time axis within the exhibition space.
Ryuichi Sakamoto+Shiro Takatani, async-immersion tokyo, 2024. Installation view of the exhibition Ryuichi Sakamoto/seeing sound, hearing time
at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo (MOT), 2024. ©2024 KAB Inc. Photo by Takeshi Asano
Takatani has incorporated visual elements that include Sakamoto’s piano, books, percussion instruments, and other objects from his New York studio. The images enter into view from either side of an eighteen-metre-long LED video wall and move steadily across the screen, gradually transforming into a unified landscape before they dissolve into lines and take shape again. With no clear beginning, middle, or end, this cyclical sequence of images and lines seems to suggest the rhythms of life. Takatani completed async–immersion following Sakamoto’s passing in 2023, after which it was exhibited for the first time at the art and music festival AMBIENT KYOTO. It was subsequently reconfigured for Sakamoto’s wildly popular and critically acclaimed solo exhibition in 2024 at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo (MOT) before travelling to M+ in February 2026. The installation is on display at The Studio, Level B2.
Nam June Paik. All Star Video, 1984, video (color, sound), 32 min. Courtesy Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI), New York.
Explore the creative collaborations of Ryuichi Sakamoto
The exhibition also features All Star Video (1984), directed by trailblazing media artist Nam June Paik (South Korean, 1932–2006). This video work, which highlights Paik’s friendship and creative exchange with a young Ryuichi Sakamoto, celebrates New York’s vibrant art scene of the 1980s. Reflecting that period’s dynamic confluence of artists and musicians, it documents Paik’s and Sakamoto’s encounters with renowned figures influenced by the Fluxus art movement, including Laurie Anderson, John Cage, Charlotte Moorman, and Julian Beck, capturing these artists’ collaborative spirit. Ultimately, All Star Video reveals the shared experimental mindset that shaped these individuals’ art and personal relationships.
Nam June Paik. All Star Video, 1984, video (color, sound), 32 min. Courtesy Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI), New York.
Two other moving image works, ENDO EXO (2024) and PHOSPHENES (2024), are displayed at the Grand Stair, Level G, under Art at the Stair series. Both videos are by German artist and electronic music pioneer Carsten Nicolai (German, born 1965), also known by the pseudonym Alva Noto. The result of a more recent collaboration, the videos feature music from Sakamoto’s final studio album, 12 (2023). ENDO EXO contemplates the human impulse to collect, catalogue, and preserve once-living creatures, while PHOSPHENES poetically explores the boundaries between dream and reality, consciousness and unconsciousness with abstract patterns and images. Both videos are part of Nicolai’s ongoing moving image project 20,000 (2014–present), inspired by Jules Verne’s 19th century science fiction novel 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.
Carsten Nicolai. ENDO EXO, 2024. Single-channel digital video (colour, sound), 7 min. 43 sec. ©Studio Carsten Nicolai, NOTON. Archiv fur Ton und Nichtton.
Courtesy of the Artist and Galerie EIGEN+ART Leipzig/Berlin.
Carsten Nicolai. PHOSPHENES, 2024. Single-channel digital video (color, sound), 7 min. 23 sec. ©Studio Carsten Nicolai, NOTON. Arch iv fur Ton und Nichtton.
Courtesy of the Artist and Galerie EIGEN+ART Leipzig/Berlin.
About the Exhibition
Dates: 10 Feb 2026 – 31 Jul 2026
Venue: The Studio, B2, and Grand Stair, G, M+
Courtesy of M+, edited by CAFA ART INFO.
