CHIHARU SHIOTA / Inner Universe
Templon, Paris – Grenier Saint Lazare
MAY 30 – JULY 25, 2020
This summer, Galerie Templon will be filled with the spectacular woven work of Japanese artist Chiharu Shiota. One onsite installation and a series of new sculptures explore the “Inner Universe” that some may see as the mind, others as consciousness, and which transcends the body, connecting beings to each other.
2020; METAL FRAME, ANATOMY BOOK AND THREAD; 50 X 50 X 30 CM
Courtesy of Galerie Templon.
Famous for her monumental site-specific installations and skilful weaving of thread that spreads through space, Japanese artist Chiharu Shiota has spent years questioning the notion of surface and the traditional boundaries of painting. With Inner Universe, she invites us on a poetic journey examining the secret ties between the finiteness of existence and eternity.
2020; BRONZE AND METAL WIRE; 13,5 X 21,5 X 29,5 CM
Courtesy of Galerie Templon.
Inner Universe opens with a series of her signature sculptures of red, white and black threads. The mysterious boxes deconstruct our conception of the body: levitating clothes, anatomy books, personal belongings. As if crystallized in these tight weavings, they bear witness to everyday life while raising universal, metaphysical questions. As the artist explains: “the thread separates us from this physical presence within the object, but at the same time, this structure allows me to create a new space. Piling up layer after layer of cut, tangled and knotted thread creates the entirety of the universe bound to this frame.”
2020; BRONZE AND METAL WIRE – Courtesy of Galerie Templon.
This palpable detachment from earthly life is countered by a new set of sculptures made of imperishable materials. Blown-glass Cells suggest almost abstract forms of cells and organs bursting with life, while the In the Hand bronzes, moulds of her own hands, seem to bring the material alive. On the walls, her woven Skin canvases cover the space with skin that is both microscopic and cosmic.
2020; MIXED MEDIA; 36 X 36 X 36 CM – Courtesy of Galerie Templon
In the main room, some bronze sculptures representing parts of the artist family’s bodies are placed on the floor. “I want to scatter pieces of my relative’s body on the ground; their absence is thus embodied, and each of these parts evokes much more than an entire body could ever do.” Chiharu Shiota thus seeks to give us a glimpse of the complex relationships between beings and the potentially eternal interdependence of consciousnesses.
2020; MIXED MEDIA; 20 X 30 X 23 CM – Courtesy of Galerie Templon
Born in Osaka, Japan, in 1972, Chiharu Shiota has been living and working in Berlin since 1999. After a degree in painting at Seika university in Kyoto, Chiharu Shiota turned to performance and pursued her artistic studies in Berlin. Chiharu Shiota is an internationally renowned artist whose work has been exhibited for twenty years. She represented Japan at the 2015 Venice Biennale. Her work has been the subject of numerous museum solo exhibitions including: in 2017, Infinity Lines, SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah, Georgia (USA), Under the Skin, Kunsthalle Rostock, Rostock (Germany) and Direction, KODE-Art Museums of Bergen, Bergen (Norway); in 2018, The Butterfly Dream, Museum of Kyoto (Japan), The Distance, Gothenburg Museum of Art, Gothenburg (Sweden), Embodied, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide (Australia) and Where are we going?, Le Bon Marché, Paris (France), and in 2019, Beyond Memory, Gropius Bau, Berlin (Germany) and The Soul Trembles, Mori Art Museum, Tokyo (Japan).
