Artist of the week 76: Chiharu Shiota

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Artist Chiharu Shiota’s labyrinthine installations weave a complex web from waking life and fading memories

Chiharu Shiota is a spider-woman – one who clambers around in the skeins of our unconscious. In her best-known installations she weaves black yarn into hectic webs that take over entire galleries and in which personal objects are found cocooned. The Japanese Berlin-based artist has ensnared everything from the wedding dresses seen in last year’s Walking in My Mind exhibition at the Hayward gallery, to a grand piano and childhood toys. In one of her sleeping performances, you might even find Shiota herself ensconced beneath layers of mesh.

Born in Osaka, the artist moved from Japan to Germany in 1997, to study under the performance art maven Marina Abramović. For one of her early works, Try and Go Home of 1998, Shiota fasted for four days and then smeared her naked body with earth before taking to a muddy hole. With its suggestions of both womb and grave, the work hinged on feelings of loss and oblivion that have underscored much of her work since. A later installation first shown in 2000, Memory of Skin, featured similarly dirt-stained dresses, suggesting knowledge that won’t wash off.

Personal experience is central to Shiota’s work. For a project initially staged as Dialogue from DNA in 2004 in Poland and then recreated in Germany and Japan, she invited people to donate footwear with a memory attached – resulting in thousands of old shoes, many of which had belonged to loved ones who had died. She attached each to a taut red thread, a symbol of the path through life as well as the imprint of journeys taken.

There’s a similar push and pull between closeness and separation in her sleeping performances, where women doze on neatly arranged hospital beds beneath a canopy of black threads. However intimate watching these people sleep might have felt, the artist implies that we can never know what’s going on behind their closed eyes.

“It would be nice to banish every trace of myself, my looks, my papers, my passport, and even my fingerprints,” Shiota has said, “and only create my works in dialogue with the cosmos.” While exploring the hinterlands between waking life and dream states and chasing fading memories, in Shiota’s labyrinthine installations the passage into oblivion always feels close at hand.

Why we like her: One Place, currently on show in London, features hundreds of old glass windows taken from East Berlin building sites. Stacked to the ceiling in cathedral-like domes, they draw out a spiritual dimension to relics from the communist era.

Sound of silence: When Shiota was nine years old her neighbour’s house burned down; the following day the artist saw a charred piano amongst the ruins. This instrument that lost its sound has haunted the artist and inspired various works in which she sets alight to a grand piano, then displays the remains within an installation of black thread.

Where can I see her: Chiharu Shiota, One Place, is at Haunch of Venison, London until 27 March.

Skye Sherwin

 

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

 

SourcedFrom The artist says: Thanks for reading my contemporary art blog! If you are involved in the art and culture industry in any way, and would like to syndicate content from or to this blog, or if you simply enjoy art and would like to get in touch, please leave a comment! This article has been kindly provided by: Art and design: Art | guardian.co.uk

Posted by admin   @   26 February 2010
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Feb 28, 2010
12:07 pm
#1 JemmaBarks :

Half of my IT is done :) yay only art, other half of IT, fench and history left :(

Feb 28, 2010
12:10 pm
#2 mikesorgatz :

RT Miqel Barceló exhibit, greatest Spanish contemporary artist, in Madrid. http://bit.ly/dqWhoO wiki -http://bit.ly/92l7GQ

Feb 28, 2010
9:18 pm
#3 arts_book :

Rethinking the Contemporary Art School: The Artist, the PhD and the Academy. http://j.mp/ax3faI

Mar 1, 2010
9:18 am
#4 NELLYWAITS :

Whitney Museum http://3.ly/kBb If you’re in NYC you might want to see Biennial. Contemporary art, each Artist has one piece.

Mar 1, 2010
9:17 pm
#5 myhandmadegifts :

Burien Art Gallery’s “Page Turner: Contemporary Artist Books” Opens Friday: The B-Town Blog (blog)
The Burien Art … http://bit.ly/d7d7Ln

Mar 2, 2010
9:17 am
#6 dancesculpture :

Burien Art Gallery’s “Page Turner: Contemporary Artist Books” Opens Friday http://bit.ly/d7d7Ln

Mar 5, 2010
1:59 am
#7 BlogHosting :

Art Lebedev’s Segmentus clock gives you a digital reading using its analog hands:
We’re not quite sure whether yo… http://bit.ly/d3nwcn

Mar 5, 2010
9:18 am
#8 Amendoeira :

WOW! Impressive food art. Look these cakes from São Paulo, Brazil made by Carla Ikeda. http://bit.ly/9Ic5zd

Mar 5, 2010
9:19 pm
#9 MsMapes :

Got into Armory art fair for FREE!!!!!!! AND got a free catalogue!!! I can’t tell you how excited this made me!

Mar 6, 2010
7:56 am
#10 mipoesias :

Past (art) Contributors for the May/June issue have already been accepted/confirmed/proofed with the exception of… http://bit.ly/dzQEmZ

Mar 6, 2010
7:59 am
#11 hanhtran912 :

I really like Art for my career but I think for my college major I should choose Communications or International Business

Mar 6, 2010
9:18 am
#12 bluevertical :

Cardboard Tower http://bit.ly/c20gQB

Mar 6, 2010
9:17 pm
#13 sacocci :

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Mar 7, 2010
9:18 am
#14 EricaEvrPowrful :

http://twitpic.com/176cqi – Elijah in front of the Art Museum of Phila.

Mar 7, 2010
9:18 pm
#15 EmanHashim :

Art Direction for AVATAR… YAAAAAY!

Mar 8, 2010
9:19 am
#16 Tomppa_Comics :

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Mar 8, 2010
9:18 pm
#17 sahityailla :

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Mar 9, 2010
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Mar 9, 2010
9:20 pm
#19 pacopacool :

Just finished teaching my first art class! I’m really happy & exited for next week

Mar 10, 2010
9:19 am
#20 mahmudurra :

Use Photo Manipulation and 3D Layers to Design a Surreal Cover Art Illustration http://bit.ly/aeAT2m

Mar 10, 2010
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Simple Moving Average Crossover: stock hitting low – $ARTG – http://www.dojispace.com/stock-picks/art-technology-stock-price-ARTG.aspx

Mar 11, 2010
9:20 am
#22 Top4Download :

Fruit art http://goo.gl/fb/VVie

Mar 11, 2010
9:18 pm
#23 honoluluacademy :

http://twitpic.com/180tw7 – Steak Florentine sandwiches (pre-assembly). $8. Jazz in the air. Breezy. Art. Til 9.

Mar 12, 2010
9:17 am
#24 culturemonster :

Art review: Judy Fiskin at Angles Gallery http://bit.ly/baobOA

Mar 12, 2010
9:18 pm
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Mar 13, 2010
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#26 MotoringAllianc :

Book Review :: The Art of Racing in the Rain http://goo.gl/fb/2Bjp

Mar 13, 2010
9:18 pm
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wow is truly a work of art

Mar 14, 2010
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#28 elmonte09 :

Collage IV PLZ RT http://bit.ly/bKaEQo

Mar 14, 2010
10:18 am
#29 emilyraincoat :

my artistic experience is being used to help my niece with a piece for an art contest. its fun to go back to easy stuff.

Mar 14, 2010
10:19 pm
#30 GlobalTastes :

http://twitpic.com/18ok8d – Ginger Cardamom Scones – The Art of High Tea Cooking Class – http://bit.ly/b3ovtX

Mar 15, 2010
10:21 am
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so far today: have ironed, hovered, changed the bed, watched a an indian music festival, the art of italian renaissance and reich the roxy

Mar 15, 2010
10:20 pm
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Did you talk incorporating art into design with architects?

Mar 16, 2010
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Bobby ‘Art’ Donner

http://lnk.ms/7BCzd src=”http://lnk.ms/7BCzg” alt=”" />

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Mar 16, 2010
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Mar 17, 2010
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Mar 19, 2010
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Mar 20, 2010
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Mar 21, 2010
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Mar 22, 2010
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Mar 23, 2010
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Mar 23, 2010
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Mar 24, 2010
10:19 am
#51 MaggieSwitz :

I wish our elementary school had an art room ….. teachers teach art in their own rooms and wash up in the bathroom sinks!

Mar 24, 2010
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Working on an idea from Tuesday with art club members…the Dwyer Community Podcasts or something like that… we like to talk so we will

Mar 25, 2010
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Mar 25, 2010
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Mar 26, 2010
10:18 am
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RT Great LOVE

Mar 26, 2010
10:21 pm
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LIFE – Incredibly Limber Figure Skaters http://ow.ly/16U2sA

Mar 27, 2010
10:21 am
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Mar 27, 2010
10:21 pm
#58 jizlee :

Considered bringing my snake to wear at Femina Potens Art of Restraint “The Beast Within Us”… But I don’t quite think of her like that.

Mar 28, 2010
10:21 am
#59 FirstFocus :

New blog: Fine Art Print Collection – http://tinyurl.com/ybh2ny4

Mar 28, 2010
10:18 pm
#60 gamingangels :

The Art of Emerald City Comic Con – Somewhere along the way, Comic Cons (short for Comic Book Conventions’) became … http://ow.ly/16UTcI

Mar 29, 2010
10:20 am
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this belongs in a Seascapes: Quiet Storm – Classic 20 X 24 http://bit.ly/9k4lO8

Mar 29, 2010
10:20 pm
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this belongs in a Monet Paintings: The Haysheaves – Classic 20 X 24 http://bit.ly/9Tt4xP

Mar 30, 2010
10:19 am
#63 mijadedios :

what the art.didn’t say was these crazies took cover under this militia–but close enough! thanks 4 tweeting it!

Mar 30, 2010
10:19 pm
#64 FlyyBoogz :

April 16th Bday party at The Time Square Art Center 42st n 8th ave http://twitpic.com/16pf8v

Mar 31, 2010
10:22 am
#65 WhyArtMatters :

Why Art Matters is a twitter feed about my thoughts on art and why it matters. This maybe educational even. Right? 1st thought soon.

Mar 31, 2010
10:21 pm
#66 Rahsaan_Jackson :

Art last forever~

Apr 1, 2010
10:22 am
#67 LoriAtEBTP :

Cover Art , “Caption This” , and Booking Through Thursday have all been posted. http://escapebetweenthepages.blogspot.com/

Apr 1, 2010
10:19 pm
#68 P45K :

is designing EP art for :)

Apr 2, 2010
10:19 am
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her cuz she see my work of art in da haLLS OF AMHS

Apr 3, 2010
10:21 am
#71 winkwinketc :

Tickets now on sale for The Forbidden Zone, and Susan Tyrrell’s EYESORES (art show!) Highball, w/The Octopus Project! http://bit.ly/92Ujna

Apr 3, 2010
10:21 pm
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Apr 4, 2010
10:21 am
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Das Osterei der etwas anderen Art! http://bit.ly/aDEmHC

Apr 4, 2010
10:21 pm
#74 ElmhurstApts :

Art in April: Artists in Hospitals|WEB EXCLUSIVE : Local artist Ian Cion talks about the process of creating an .. http://oohja.com/xa7Ml

Apr 5, 2010
10:22 am
#75 maureenmcgarvey :

Nice hotel, Gav? Toiletries quality? Art work? Towelling robe? Hope tomorrow relatively calm for you…

Apr 5, 2010
10:20 pm
#76 TraderRock :

“It has been said that Carl Dreyer’s art begins to unfold just at the point where most directors give up” – Pauline Kael

Apr 6, 2010
10:21 am
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Reply to an art job post on http://bit.ly/bFShHu

Apr 6, 2010
10:21 pm
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Apr 7, 2010
10:19 am
#79 RichirajD :

RT 25 New and Fresh Typographical and Text Art Wallpapers http://bit.ly/cmGEMy

Apr 7, 2010
10:21 pm
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Apr 8, 2010
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Apr 8, 2010
10:20 pm
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GMLive Transcending Vision at OMA: New openings at the Orlando Museum of Art are always a treat, and plenty of art… http://bit.ly/9rq7PP

Apr 9, 2010
10:19 am
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State of art ecommerce site http://fflap.pixelvectordemo.co.uk/url/297

Apr 9, 2010
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Apr 10, 2010
10:19 am
#85 fotofreq :

listened 2 ur interview again; agree 100% w/ur comments re downside of in-camera HDR processing. I kinda like 2 work 4 my art!

Apr 10, 2010
10:21 pm
#86 davidronnie :

agreed. Been pretty disappointed with the quality of a lot of music-related art in the last few years…

Apr 11, 2010
10:21 am
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Fitness: riva’s Community Art Center Pt. 1.mov http://www.fitmyvid.com/rivas-community-art-center-pt-1-mov

Apr 11, 2010
10:19 pm
#88 TheWarholMuseum :

Warhols nephew talks art (his own) & Uncle Andy being a kid at heart, workaholic, & always asking about his home town http://bit.ly/95ool1

Apr 12, 2010
10:22 am
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Apr 12, 2010
10:20 pm
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Apr 13, 2010
10:22 am
#91 TeresaP13 :

RT The Green Cycles: Keeping Materials In the Loop & Out of the Trash http://lunch.com/t/1110 (I make art w/ recycled items)

Apr 13, 2010
10:21 pm
#92 MMALERIAN :

( Photos
) – Modern Art Eats St Patrick s Church – http://su.pr/2kExDb

Apr 14, 2010
10:22 am
#93 missport :

seen as i am shite at art and that was never gonna work out, i think am gonna leave that ambition and just become i pilot :D

Apr 14, 2010
10:22 pm
#94 _Blitz_ :

Wow, the news just said Madonna’s daughter is going to go to my old high school, LaGuardia HS of Music & Art. Should they broadcast that?

Apr 15, 2010
10:19 am
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its an art project, I guess. ask max.

Apr 15, 2010
10:21 pm
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Apr 16, 2010
10:23 am
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Apr 17, 2010
10:21 am
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Seems like Ebert is reframing the discussion — Not “Can games be art?” but “How long until games are art?” Interesting.

Apr 17, 2010
10:21 pm
#99 sundrygoods :

The DC Comics Rarities Archives, Vol. 1 (DC Archive Editions) (Hardcover) newly tagged “art”: The D… http://amzn.to/95BJmp

Apr 18, 2010
10:18 am
#100 officeovereasy :

Obsessing over clip art pics for my slide deck.

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