Forbes : In Conversation With Japanese Artist Chiharu Shiota Who Uses Thread To Form Monumental Architectures.
By Y-Jean Mun-Delsalle, Feb 24, 2022,10:30am EST.
Known for weaving webs of thread and wool to create dreamlike, immersive environments that reveal human emotions, Berlin-based Chiharu Shiota represented Japan at the 2015 Venice Biennale and the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo held a major retrospective of her work in 2019, which has since become a traveling exhibition. Now the Guimet Asian Art Museum in Paris will be giving her carte blanche from March 16 to June 6, 2022 in her first solo museum show in France. Exploring anxiety in the COVID-19 era as our everyday lives shrank and we experienced isolation in our doll’s houses, she tackles themes of immobility, silence, confinement and an uncertain future. I sit down with her to discuss her artistic practice.
Beyond Memory, 2019, wool and paper installation, Gropius Bau, Berlin, Germany
PHOTO SUNHI MANG. COURTESY OF VG BILD-KUNST, BONN, 2020 AND THE ARTIST.
You were born in Osaka in 1972. Tell me about your background, your upbringing, your parents, what you were like as a child, if any of your family members were artists, how and when you became interested in art, and when you knew you wanted to be an artist. What did your parents think of you choosing art?
My parents ran a manufacturing company in Osaka. The factory produced wooden boxes for fish. You could hear the machines working from early in the morning until late in the evening, producing 1,000 boxes a day. It was very frantic. I hated the factory system working with machines, almost like a machine. I was very young when I knew I wanted to do something more spiritually fulfilling with my life. This was why I wanted to be an artist. I was always drawing and painting, and when my mother took me to a Van Gogh exhibition, I was inspired. I don’t think my parents cared about what I was doing. My brothers would study and work, and I think they believed I would marry and be a mother. They only later understood what I was doing when I was featured on Japanese TV.
Describe to me your artistic language and philosophy.
My work is about fundamental human questions about relationships, life and death. I try to express thoughts through my art that I can’t talk about, and I think many others have the same emotions. I have become obsessed with human memories and existence, and I have recreated human presence without a physical body.
Connecting Small Memories (2019) mixed media installation at Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan.
PHOTO SUNHI MANG. COURTESY OF MORI ART MUSEUM, TOKYO © VG BILD-KUNST, BONN, 2020 AND THE ARTIST.
Why have you made weaving threads your signature medium, going from studying two-dimensional painting in Kyoto to what you call “drawing in the air” in three-dimensional installations?
During my second year of studying painting, I felt stuck. I could not continue this path anymore. I had the feeling that painting had so much history, but it was not part of my history. I did not know how to continue. I went on an exchange year to Australia where I had a dream of being stuck inside a two-dimensional painting. I could not breathe because oil paint was being poured on me and I had difficulties moving. This was the inspiration for “Becoming Painting”. I had the control and covered myself with red enamel paint. I understood that I could create art with my body. Afterwards, I began using different materials and then thread. The single thread is like a line in the air. Creating these installations is like drawing in the air.
What is the importance of the colors red, white and black to you?
Red symbolizes blood and therefore human relationships. Black forms a surface like a night sky which gradually expands into the universe. The color white is also a representation of life; it is pure and infinite.
In Silence (2019) installation composed of a burnt piano, burnt chairs and Alcantara black thread.
PHOTO SUNHI MANG. COURTESY OF MORI ART MUSEUM, TOKYO © VG BILD-KUNST, BONN, 2020 AND THE ARTIST.
How long does it take you to make one installation?
It depends on the exhibition space. Normally, five to 10 people work for 10 to 14 days on one installation.
Tell me how your entire oeuvre is somewhat autobiographical, expressions of your own thoughts, emotions and memories, somewhere between dream and reality. Is making art cathartic for you?
I make art not as a kind of therapy for internal anxiety, since in my case fear is necessary to actually make art.
Cell, 2020, mixed media, 7 7/8 x 11 3/4 x 9 in.
PHOTO COURTESY OF GALERIE TEMPLON, PARIS – BRUSSELS © ADAGP, PARIS, 2020.
escribe your works in your 2020 exhibition, “Inner Universe”, at Galerie Templon in Paris using glass, bronze, paper and thread to represent cells, organs and skin. Why did you include sculptures of your own body parts and those of your family members?
The exhibition at the Galerie Templon focused on my relationship with life and death. I had to overcome a serious medical condition, and I have processed this experience in my work. The objects “Cell” resemble, for example, organs or body cells that are restricted by wire. The sculptures “In the Hand” are molds of my arms and the arms of my husband and daughter. I wanted to immortalize our connection. I created a new installation with leather and molds of my body. The mixed media installation expressed my connection with my body.
What are your views on Asian contemporary art and its place in the art world? Being Asian yourself, do you envision more Asian artists gaining in prominence and becoming international icons in the future?
Yes, totally. There are so many private contemporary museums in Asia now, and they want to show national artists. I think there is a much bigger platform than when I was young. I think Asian artists have a better chance now, and I look forward to seeing more.
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