Some artists are spoken of even more after their passing, and Ryuichi Sakamoto is certainly one of them. The Japanese composer, who passed away in 2023, is remembered this autumn in Berlin with an extraordinary retrospective. Opening at Hamburger Bahnhof, seeing sound, hearing time marks Sakamoto’s first major retrospective in Europe—and it is the kind of experience that lingers long after you leave.
Having opened its doors on September 11, the exhibition runs through June 20, 2027. Spanning the roughly 1,500-square-meter Rieckhallen space, seven works welcome visitors across five large-scale installations.
“He was someone who redrew boundaries”
You might know Sakamoto as a member of YMO (Yellow Magic Orchestra) or through his iconic film scores for Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence and The Last Emperor—an artist showered with accolades including an Oscar, two Golden Globes, and a Grammy. Yet this exhibition deliberately sets that Sakamoto aside.
Curators Ingrid Buschmann and Tokyo-based Sachiko Namba intentionally omitted his YMO era, pop hits, and film scores. The objective here is distinct: to recognize Sakamoto’s sound installation practice in galleries and museums as a standalone artistic discipline. They describe his work as “the point where composition, film, performance, technology, and visual art begin to alter one another’s grammar”—a description that hits the mark precisely.
IS YOUR TIME – A Piano Tuned by Nature
Standing at the heart of the exhibition, this work is profoundly moving. Damaged during the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, the piano was assigned a new role by Sakamoto: generating sound driven by real-time seismic data from across the globe. You listen to the pulse of the Earth through the strings of a broken instrument.
Sakamoto characterized it as “a piano tuned by nature.” The scar left by the tsunamidestruction itself is transformed into a musical instrument. Neither a mere metaphor nor a performance, it is an unequivocal confrontation.
Spaces Born from async
Sakamoto’s 2017 album async inspired installations developed alongside artist Shiro Takatani and filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul. Three-dimensional soundscapes are constructed; you do not remain stationary, but walk through them. Sound is not a background element, but the physical space itself.
12: The Final Album, On an Unprecedented Scale
Recorded between 2021 and 2022, Sakamoto’s album 12 feels like a personal audio diary accumulated by pressing keys daily during his illness. Carsten Nicolai translated the music of this album, completed shortly before the artist’s death, into filmic works. Experiencing that intimacy and quiet courage within a cavernous space evokes an entirely singular sensation.
An Exhibition Worthy of Hamburger Bahnhof’s 30th Anniversary
As Hamburger Bahnhof celebrates its 30th anniversary this year, the Sakamoto retrospective sits right at the center of the commemoration. Imagine how sound waves wander through the cold, soaring ceilings of a former railway station; the venue itself functions like an instrument.
Open until 20:00 on Thursday evenings, the exhibition thins out as crowds disperse a detail the curators specifically highlight, making the experience markedly more introspective. This provides the ideal setting to fully absorb Sakamoto’s works.
Why Visit?
Because Sakamoto did not view sound merely as something to be heard, but constructed it as a material to be felt and inhabited. This exhibition presents him not just as a composer, but as a thinker of sound. And that distinction makes all the difference.
