External | The Korea Times: Chiharu Shiota explores uncertainty of life in Busan

Japanese artist Chiharu Shiota's "Uncertain Journey" is currently on view at the Busan Museum of Art through April 19. Courtesy of Busan Museum of Art

By Kwon Mee-yoo

BUSAN ― Artist Chiharu Shiota is often compared to a "human spider" as the artist weaves webs around objects and bodies. Her life-size installations engulf the space and the viewer, stirring up sensations of both uneasiness as well as coziness.

The 47-year-old Japanese artist unraveled her life's path ridden with pain and uncertainty at "Shiota Chiharu: The Soul Trembles" at the Busan Museum of Art in Korea's southern port city.

The exhibit, originally presented at the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo, Japan last year, is one of the largest solo exhibitions of the artist to date. The Busan edition features four large installations as well as sculptures, drawings, photographs and videos of performances. Unfortunately, "Where Are We Going?," a cluster of boats suspended from the ceiling above the Mori Art Museum's iconic entrance, couldn't come to Busan, but still this marks the largest exhibition of the artist in Korea. 

Born in Osaka, Japan, Shiota is now based in Berlin. Busan holds a special place in Shiota's heart as the port city is her husband's hometown. She was worried that the touring exhibition might fall through amid souring relations between Korea and Japan, but art won over politics and "The Soul Trembles" was able to successfully open in Busan.

Chiharu Shiota's "In Silence" is currently on view at the Busan Museum of Art through April 19. Courtesy of Busan Museum of Art

The most significant event in Shiota's life that had a profound impact on her personal and artistic career was being diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2005 and again in 2017. Battling with cancer brought death to the artist's foreground. 

"Death forms a part of my work. I view it not as an end, but rather as a new beginning. For me, death represents a new state of existence within the cycle of life. Death is a state that moves towards a larger universe," Shiota said.

For Shiota, creating works out of her passion and love is the only thing she could live for. 

"Helpless conflicts of minds, uncommunicable emotions and my inexplicable existence; these feelings give all my works form and shape. The year before last, I was diagnosed with cancer again after 12 years, but it struck me that perhaps the painful treatment along with the confrontation with death is a tribulation to create honest works... It is a dialogue with my unveiled, naked soul," the artist said.

Upon entering "Uncertain Journey," viewers will encounter bare boat frames and red threads covering the space and the unseaworthy vessels. The experience of walking into the maze of red threads is immersive and awe-inspiring. The bright red threads sprawling from the boats resemble blood vessels as well as the Red Thread of Fate, an imaginary thread that connects from one's pinky finger to one's future lover. Over 280 kilometers of thread was used for this installation. 

This is an the extension of "The Key in the Hand," a site-specific installation of two Venetian boats and hundreds of keys weaved through red threads Shiota created for the Japan Pavilion during the Venice Biennale in 2015. The keys are gone and the shape of the boats has become more abstract, but the artist still explores the same theme of expedition, insecurity and relations. 

"The interconnectivity of threads represents relationships among people. A ship is an unstable object that could capsize in the sea, but they are weaved with the thread. The ship has become a recurring motif in my works as I think they are connected and can go anywhere," Shiota said.

"In Silence" consists of a blackened piano and burnt audience chairs covered in webs of black threads. The piece was inspired by Shiota's childhood memory of a fire at a neighbor's house in the middle of the night.

"When I was nine, there was a fire at the house next to ours. The next day, there was a piano sitting outside the house. Scorched until it was jet black, it seemed an even more beautiful symbol than before," Shiota explained. "There are things that sink deep into the recesses of my mind and others that fail to take either a physical or verbal form, no matter how hard you try. But they exist as souls without a tangible form."

Chiharu Shiota's "Out of My Body" is currently on view at the Busan Museum of Art through April 19. Courtesy of Busan Museum of Art

"Out of My Body" is one of the latest works she created for "The Soul Trembles." As she was diagnosed with a recurrence of ovarian cancer while preparing for this exhibit, Shiota went through surgeries and chemotherapy which she described as a "mechanical" procedure. She felt like a product on a conveyer belt. She interpreted her struggles against the cancer with sculptures of severed body parts such as arms, hands, legs and feet scattered under shredded red cowhide.

While her large-scale installations immediately draw the attention of visitors, the exhibit sheds light on various aspects of the 25 years of Shiota's artistic career from her early works to her stage designs.

"Try and Go Home" is a 1998 video Shiota created while trained by renowned performance artist Marina Abramovic, in which Shiota climbs up and tumbles down a muddy hill repeatedly. The endurance shown in the video is one of the elements that shapes Shiota's iconic style visualizing the unseen.

Shiota also has designed stage sets of a number of dance and opera productions, including "All Alone," "Tattoo," "Oedipus Rex" and "Tristan and Isolde." Her signature style "web of threads" and suspended objects can be seen on stage as well and is shown in this exhibit through archival photographs and scale models. 

The exhibit runs through April 19. After Busan, Shiota's retrospective will tour Australia and Indonesia.

Chiharu Shiota's "Inside ― Outside" / Courtesy of Busan Museum of Art