Ryoji Ikeda
June 14–November 18, 2012
DHC/ART Foundation for Contemporary Art
451 & 465 St-Jean
Corner Notre-Dame, in Old Montreal
Montreal, Quebec H2Y 2R5 Canada
Hours: Wed–Fri, 12–7pm
Sat and Sun, 11–6pm
Free admission
T 514 849 3742
info [at] dhc-art.org
DHC/ART Foundation for Contemporary Art is delighted to present Ryoji Ikeda’s first survey exhibition in North America. A fascinating and troubling poet of the digital age, Ikeda’s profound investigations in sound, time, and space have their basis in mathematical methods which result in works of spare, sublime, if occasionally ear-splitting, beauty. Spanning the microscopic to the infinite, his performances, installations, and artworks variously produce sine waves, sound pulses, pixels of light, and numerical data—sometimes in extraordinary combinations. The artist has conceived a conceptual counterpoint between DHC/ART’s two buildings: the main space will display framed works, light boxes, sculptural works, and works on paper under the rubric systematics. In the Satellite space Ikeda will present audiovisual projects, orchestrated as a symphonic whole, from the datamatics series which tests the limits of perception by visualizing the invisible data streams which permeate our world.
Japan’s leading electronic composer and visual artist, Ryoji Ikeda has gained a reputation as one of the few international artists working convincingly across both visual and sonic media. He elaborately orchestrates sound, visuals, materials, physical phenomena, and mathematical notions into immersive live performances and installations. Alongside pure musical activities, Ikeda has been working on long-term installation projects: datamatics (2006–) consisting of moving image, sculptural, sound, and new media works that explore how abstracted views of reality are used to encode, understand, and control the world. The project test pattern (2008-) has developed a system that converts any type of data—text, sounds, photos, and movies—into barcode patterns and binary patterns of 0s and 1s. The series spectra (2001–) consists of large-scale installations employing intense white light as a sculptural material transforming public locations in Amsterdam, Paris, Barcelona, and Nagoya.
Ryoji Ikeda was born in 1966 in Gifu, Japan. He now lives and works in Paris. He has performed and exhibited worldwide including Australian Centre for the Moving Image, Melbourne; MIT, Boston; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Sónar Festival Barcelona; Tate Modern, London; Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin; Auditorium Parco della Musica, Roma; lCC, Tokyo; Art Beijing; Göteborg Biennale; Mutek Festival; and many other electronic music festivals and small DJ clubs.
Artist talk: Ryoji Ikeda
Thursday, June 14, 12pm
The talk will be offered in English
407, St-Pierre
Free admission
Seating is limited and available on a first-come, first-served basis.
The Ryoji Ikeda exhibition is supported by the Japan Foundation and is presented as part of the International Digital Arts Biennial. Elements of this installation were provided by Park Avenue Armory.
*Image above:
Ryoji Ikeda, data.matrix [nº1-10], 2009. Audiovisual installation.
© Ryoji Ikeda. Photo by Ryuichi Maruo.
