Ryoji Ikeda

The Japanese artist Ryoji Ikeda composes with light, sound, and big data.

Ryoji Ikeda takes data that surrounds us and compresses it into large-scale audiovisual works. He brings the world of big data from minute particles and immense bodies of the universe into Amos Rex’s observatory-like space. The exhibited works include two brand new works made specifically for the museum. The exhibition runs from 27 September 2023 to 25 February 2024 and marks Ikeda’s first solo show in Finland. 

Japanese composer and visual artist Ryoji Ikeda (b. 1966) works with sound, rhythm, light, scientific imagery, and data visualization. With a background in the electronic music, DJ-ing and composing music, Ikeda brings the method of composing to his work in fine art. Ikeda uses light, sound, and data to create installations that resonate with the space around them.  

New works 
With Amos Rex’s unique architecture in mind, Ikeda has created two new works for the exhibition, mass and spin. On the floor of the exhibition space, the black and white video projection, mass, flashes at the feet of the viewer. Above, in the skylight of one of Amos Rex’s domes is spin, a kinetic laser sculpture that repeats infinitely what appears to be the Möbius loop. 

“My basic standpoint in working is to respect given spaces first, and to optimize my works site-specifically. I respectfully follow this line of thinking in my exhibition at Amos Rex. Two new works are site-specifically dedicated to the space. It will be hard to show them in any other space,” says Ikeda. 

Ikeda’s large scale projections data-verse 1 & 2 (2019) divide the museum’s main domed space in half. Drawing from fifteen years of research gathered from scientific institutions including NASA and CERN, the works show a perspective from the microscopic to macroscopic levels all the way to galaxies and unfathomable magnitudes. The viewer appears minute in front of the projection and in the face of the cascading volume of data. 

For Amos Rex’ exhibition Ikeda has selected nine thematic perspectives from the large data.gram -series which are shown together for the first time in data.gram [n°5] (2023). The work reminds us of the simultaneous, fragmented structure of the data that we constantly encounter in today’s information society. 

While the material is complex, the experience of the exhibition is immediate as the works are visually, sonically, even physically striking. All five works in the exhibition are part of the artist’s broader exploration of the universe of data and the limits of perception. The exhibition is curated by Terhi Tuomi from Amos Rex. 

During the exhibition, visitors can explore data collection and processing in practice in Amos Rex’s workshop space. A data processing workshop will progress on a translucent wall where anyone can add, move, or delete data points as they see fit. 

Press images
Gallery guide

More information 
Iia Palovaara, Head of Communications: T +358 50 544 3331 / iia.palovaara [​at​] amosrex.fi 

Amos Rex is an art museum where the past, present, and future meet. Located within the functionalist landmark of Lasipalatsi, the newly built domed exhibition spaces lie under the distinctively undulating Lasipalatsi square. Amos Rex presents site-sensitive, experiential, and often technologically experimental exhibitions by contemporary artists and their Modernist predecessors. Amos Rex is owned by Föreningen Konstsamfundet. 

Biography of Ryoji Ikeda 
Born in 1966 in Gifu, Japan, Ikeda currently lives and works in Paris and Kyoto. While rooted in electronic music, the internationally active composer and artist also produces art as experimentation. Ikeda’s immersive live performances and installations employ an elaborate orchestration of sound, visuals, matter, physical phenomena, and mathematical concepts.  

Since 2008, he has presented solo exhibitions in major institutions worldwide such as Centre Pompidou Paris, Carriageworks Sydney, MONA Hobart-Tasmania, Park Avenue Armory New York, Museum of Contemporary art Tokyo, Museo de Arte Bogota, ZKM Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe, Eye Filmmuseum Amsterdam, Taipei Fine Arts Museum, 180 The Strand London and PHI Centre Montréal, amongst others. In 2022, Hirosaki Museum of Contemporary Art presented his first major solo exhibition in Japan since 2009. The exhibition at Amos Rex is his first solo show ever in Finland. 

Ikeda’s long term audiovisual project, data-verse, commissioned by Audemars Piguet Contemporary was revealed at Venice Biennale 2019, May You Live in Interesting Times curated by Ralph Rugoff.  

Ikeda has received the Prix Ars Electronica Collide@CERN in 2014, and the 70th Japanese Minister of Education Award for Fine Arts (Media Arts Division) in 2020.