The “Ryuichi Sakamoto: Seeing Sound, Hearing Time” exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo is coming to an end soon, so I went to see it (and hear it) before it was too late.
I’ve lived in Tokyo for quite a while, but there are still a lot of places I’ve never visited, and this is the first time I’ve been to the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, which is located in a corner of Kiba Park in Koto Ward.
It seems that I underestimated the public’s popularity for the late Ryuichi Sakamoto and the power of TV programs introducing exhibitions, and when I arrived at 11am on a public holiday, the museum was already in this state due to the long queues for purchasing tickets and waiting to enter.
That’s strange. I had heard that the Museum of Contemporary Art was characterized by its ‘huge size and quiet atmosphere’ (lol).
I had bought advance tickets, so I was able to skip the queue to buy tickets (about 40 minutes), but as the tickets were for a specific date, I couldn’t go back on a different day, so I had to endure the 60-minute wait to get in. Everyone waiting in an orderly line was so patient!
Finally, I was able to get in.
Here is one of the few installations where photography was allowed.
In this installation, you can enjoy the nine different visual effects, which are like landscapes or abstract paintings, that are created by shining light from above into the nine flat, box-shaped aquariums suspended from the high ceiling, you can enjoy together with minimalist environmental music, or rather environmental sounds, composed by Ryuichi Sakamoto, which fills the room.
A strange, pleasant, dark space.
By the way, I brought the LUMIX GF10 and LUMIX G12-32mm F3.5-5.6, which are both very portable. Though the m4/3 body and kit zoom lens are not good in low light, thanks to the “anti camera-shake training” I did the other day, I was able to take some good shots in the dark.
If you have enough light outside, you don’t need to worry about this.
This is an outdoor installation, and we’re all waiting for the fog to lift for a while.
And now, it’s time for the ‘fog sculpture’!
This is the second time I have seen the works of Fujiko Nakaya, the “mist sculptor”. Since my first experience of them at the Nagano Prefectural Museum of Art last year. Apart from the fact that I was viewing them as collaborative works with artists such as Ryuichi Sakamoto, I felt that the mist sculptures themselves were slightly better in the works from Nagano, which made me feel the cool air of Shinshu.
Of the works I wasn’t able to introduce in the photos, I was particularly impressed by “TIME TIME” by Ryuichi Sakamoto and Shiro Takatani, which featured the deep voice of Min Tanaka reading a poem. Also, the sandwiches at the cafe on the second floor of the museum are quite delicious.
So, that was the chapter on having seen THAT.
