About

Expo 1970 Osaka and RyuichiSakamoto

In 1970, at the age of 18, Ryuichi Sakamoto encountered a vast array of music and art at Expo ’70 in Osaka, held under the theme“Progress and Harmony for Mankind.” From the national pavilions echoed avant-garde electronic sounds rooted in atonality—TōruTakemitsu’sCrossingandSeasons, Yuji Takahashi’sEgan(an early inspiration for Sakamoto), and JōjiYuasa’sMusic for Space Projection. At the West German Pavilion, KarlheinzStockhausen performedSpiraldaily in a spherical auditorium.ThePepsi Pavilion presented the world premiere of Fujiko Nakaya’sfog sculptures, while IannisXenakiscreatedHibiki-Hana-Mafor the Steel Pavilion, which also featured sonic sculptures by François Baschet.
These experiences would leave a lasting imprint on Sakamoto—becoming a conceptual spine for his lifelong exploration of sound. The emerging world of synthesizer-based electronic music also profoundly shaped his vision. Beginning in 2016, Sakamoto was able to perform and record with the original Baschetsound sculptures from Expo ’70, weaving their unique timbres into his own compositions. These experiments culminated in his 2017 albumasync, and echoed once more in his final stage work,TIME.

Expo 2025 Osaka and “sakamotocommon”

In 2025, as the World Expo returns to Osaka, we ask:might we pass on the inspiration that once stirred the young Sakamoto—to a new generation of creators—through the platform of sakamotocommon? With this in mind, we begin our project from “VS.,” a newly opened space in Umeda, Osaka.The exhibition will feature the Baschetsound sculptures originally shown at Expo ’70, along with newly created instruments crafted by the BaschetRestoration Team at Tokyo University of the Arts and Marti Ruiz —made especially for Sakamoto. In addition, using performance data from Sakamoto himself, audiences will be able to experience his beloved grand piano playing once more—offering a quiet echo of the hands that once shaped its sound.

Exhibits

• Ryuichi Sakamoto + Shiro Takatani, LIFE—fluid, invisible, inaudible...
• Ryuichi Sakamoto: Playing the Piano 2025 - D
• Baschet sound sculptures
• Ryuichi Sakamoto, on async
• Ryuichi Sakamoto + Zakkubalan, async–volume
• Ryuichi Sakamoto + Apichatpong Weerasethakul, async–first light
• Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Durmiente
• Ryuichi Sakamoto “Ryuichi Sakamoto: Playing the Baschet”, "12" 360 Reality Audio
• Ryuichi Sakamoto Archive: 1970‐
• Sakamoto Library – Extension

Baschet Sound Sculpture

The exhibition will feature the Baschet sound sculptures originally shown at Expo ’70, along with newly created instruments crafted by the Baschet Restoration Team at Tokyo University of the Arts and Marti Ruiz —made especially for Sakamoto.

Ryuichi Sakamoto: Playing the Piano 2025 - D

Using performance data from Ryuichi Sakamoto himself, audiences can experience his beloved grand piano playing once more.

Ryuichi Sakamoto + Shiro Takatani, LIFE—fluid, invisible, inaudible...

A video and sound installation whose production involved deconstructing Sakamoto’s 1999 opera LIFE. Since the work’s release in 2007, Sakamoto came to produce installation works at art muse-ums and festivals, primarily in collaboration with Shiro Takatani. LIFE was an ambitious work on the theme of symbiosis addressed the “war and revolution” and “science and technology” of the 20th century and presented a vision for the 21st century. When translating the opera into art installation form, employing fog as a medium, the artists brought a new interest into play̶that of exploring the boundaries between perceptible and imperceptible things, as the subtitle indicates. Nine water tanks arranged in a 3 × 3 grid are suspended from the ceiling. Images are projected on fog generated inside the water tanks. Each tank is equipped with two speakers at both ends. The video images and sound derive mostly from the opera LIFE, supplemented with new material created specifically for this installation. These elements are categorized into dozens of groups according to the taxonomical system, comprising over 400 sequences that are algorithmically combined to gener-ate an infinitely evolving installation. In this space with apparatuses suspended overhead like floating gardens, visitors experience an expanse of space-time unlike our conventional linear experience.

Ryuichi Sakamoto + Zakkubalan, async-volume

In a darkened room, 24 iPhones and iPads are arranged on the walls like small, brightly lit win-dows. Sounds are softly heard coming from their screens as one approaches them. The devices display videos of Sakamoto’s home studio, living room, and garden in New York̶spaces where the artist spent much of his time while working on the album async. The fragmented videos and their sounds̶a mixture of sounds isolated from the album’s songs and natural and environmental sounds captured in each space̶constitute a single installation. async–volume is the work of Zakkubalan, an artist duo formed by Neo Sora and Albert Tholen, whose primary focus is producing film works. When asked by Sakamoto to create a “behind-the-scenes” portrait of his creative process, they eschewed the conventional documentary format, opt-ing instead to show views of his surroundings and traces of his daily life in order to draw a portrait that would make his presence felt without the artist himself being present. Each “window” is small. Viewers can look in the windows, but they are unable to see the overall work. Similarly, as they approach a window, sounds emitted by that device gain dominance over sounds from other windows. Going to peek in another window and another, they hear a different blend of sounds at each, ultimately obtaining a highly personal experience of the soundscape. Peer-ing into Sakamoto’s inner being through many small windows, each opening into a world, viewers feel a sense of being embraced by darkness inside a womb.

Ryuichi Sakamoto + Apichatpong Weerasethakul, async-first light
Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Durmiente

People at a film screening, the sea, the view of a country road from a car, a sleeping child, adult, dog... For Thai filmmaker and artist Apichatpong Weerasethakul, listening to Sakamoto’s album async was a highly personal experience. He accordingly asked people close to him to shoot footage with the same pocket-sized Digital Harinezumi camera he himself uses in his work. The images thus captured are snippets of people’s personal, everyday moments rendered in grainy, low-resolution with uniquely warm colors. Asked by Sakamoto to collaborate on the album async, then under pro-duction, Weerasethakul spent much of his time listening to the music Sakamoto sent him. He finally chose the two tracks, “disintegration” and “Life, Life,” and combining them, had Sakamoto arrange their lengths and transition into each other to suit his video. Meanwhile, he edited the video images collected by his friends. To the sounds of “disintegration,” fragments of deconstructed scenes appear,personal moments that shift one to another or sometimes repeat themselves. Gradually, the music segues to “Life, Life” as the poem “And this I dreamt, and this I dream” by Ukrainian poet, Arseny Tarkovsky, is quietly heard against images of people falling asleep. Durmiente (Spanish for “sleeper”) is a silent film, inspired by his own Memoria, that Weerasethakul produced for screening in conjunction with async–first light. It features an intimate scene, not appear-ing in the main film, of the moment when the lead character (Tilda Swinton) slowly falls asleep, signi-fying the end of her journey. The two films depict the gradual blending of boundaries as day becomes night and waking becomes dreaming, and the melding of the real and the imagined. Weerasethakul describes Sakamoto’s music as very “refreshing.” It made him feel as if encountering the sounds of nature for the first time, he says. “It’s like when one opens his or her eyes in the morning and re-members the first light, first image that one sees. Imprinted.”

“Ryuichi Sakamoto: Playing the Baschet”, “12” 360 Reality Audio Ryuichi Sakamoto

360 Reality Audio offers an immersive, three-dimensional listening experience.We will recreate the same spatial sound environment where Sakamoto reviewed and refined the 360 Reality Audio mix of his final solo studio album 12 at Sony Music Studios in Nogizaka, Tokyo. In addition, making its debut at sakamotocommon OSAKA, we will present RyuichiSakamoto: Playing the Baschet in 360 Reality Audio̶a rare recording of Sakamoto performing on Baschet Sound sculp-tures in the final years of his life.

Ryuichi Sakamoto Archive: 1970-

Traces from the time when Ryuichi Sakamoto first began to seek out sound around 1970. Handwrit-ten scores and fleeting notes, fragments from his years at Tokyo University of the Arts, candid photo-graphs, and even a ticket to the 1970 Osaka Expo, he had kept for himself̶a glimpse into the early landscape of his creative beginnings. (Courtesy of KAB Inc./KAB America Inc.)

Sakamoto Library - extension

"Sakamoto Library" is a project by Ryuichi Sakamoto to share his personal book collection with a wide audience, while also sharing the cultural assets of "books that moved someone's emotions." The initiative was launched in 2017 by Sakamoto himself, and in September 2023, he opened "Sakamoto Library" at an undisclosed location in Central Tokyo, where visitors can read books from his collection. The library operates on a reservation-only basis due to its limited space. A branch of this library will be featured at VS., recreating Sakamoto’s reading environment and featuring a selection of rare books and original merchandise from the collection, available for purchase.

Ryuichi Sakamoto × POTR

This is a collaboration between Ryuichi Sakamoto and POTR, Yoshida & Co.'s brand based on the "LIFE STYLE" concept. This shoulder bag, designed to fit a 12-inch record,features a bold graphic print by the design unit GOO CHOKI PAR.