Ryoji Ikeda and Grönlund-Nisunen saturate Berlin gallery in sound, vision and visceral sensation

In Berlin, Finnish artist duo Grönlund-Nisunen (Tommi Grönlund and Petteri Nisunen), and Japanese composer and visual artist Ryoji Ikeda are presenting a joint exhibition, each taking over half of Esther Schipper gallery.

Organised by Olivier Renaud-Clément, Ryoji Ikeda and Grönlund-Nisunen's show is a meeting of technology-powered art minds and follows a longstanding personal and professional relationship between the artists. 

In the first joint presentation of their work, the show seeks to highlight the common elements and distinctions of their practices, which each deploy innovative sound and light to create environments that rouse a phenomenological and intense, bodily response from their audience. 

Viewers may recall Ikeda's epic intervention at London’s 180 The Strand in 2021, a sensory assault course of sound, light and data. One of the standout works from that show, point of no return, has made its way to Esther Schipper. As Ikeda accurately explained of the work at the time: ‘point of no return is a very simple, very intense piece. I paint a black circle on a wall and project light around it, and this intensifies its blackness. It feels like it's always firing, you get a bit scared. It becomes overwhelming.’

The exhibition is the fifth show at the gallery for Grönlund-Nisunen, whom Ikeda describes as 'one of the most important artists to me among my contemporaries'. The duo are known for taking elemental forces – gravity, magnetism, or radiation – and translating these into poetic motifs that envelop viewers in electromagnetic radiation and sound waves. 

A new work for the show, Scattered Horizon, seeks to disorientate viewers by toying with the ordinarily stable motif of the horizon line. ‘The new work Scattered Horizon is an experimentation in a dark exhibition space. Projected slowly-swaying horizontal lines correspond with low sine wave tones modulating with each other, offering a slightly disorienting and meditative multisensory experience,‘ say the duo. ‘We have known and appreciated Ryoji and his work for [a] long [time] and Tommi´s label has also released a record by him. We have exhibited with him on some occasions during the years and it is a great pleasure to be able to do it again.’

Alongside the works by Ryoji Ikeda and Grönlund-Nisunen, a selection of new, recent, and historical works by Estonian sound and installation artist Kaarel Kurismaa will be on view in the gallery's bookstore area.

Ryoji Ikeda and Grönlund-Nisunen's exhibition will be on view at Esther Schipper, Berlin until 25 February 2023. estherschipper.com (opens in new tab)