Chiharu Shiota began studying painting in the early 1990s at an art school in Kyoto, Japan. In the second year, she had enough: “Painting was just color on a canvas. It had no other meaning. I couldn't make a connection between my life and painting; she meant nothing to me.”*
After a dream, one night in 1994, the young 22-year-old artist decided to put herself at the center of the work and initiated a performance, Becoming Painting. His body becomes a canvas to receive liters of lacquer, red and toxic paint. “During the performance, my skin started to burn. Afterwards, I had to cut my hair and wait three months for the color to disappear completely. Nevertheless, Becoming Painting was a true act of liberation. It was my first physical work, a work in which my whole body participated.”
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An act of liberation, a founding act, too. She multiplies the performances, her body at the center of the work, covered in mud, stained with paint or hidden by wires, produces some installations and refines her art through contact with Marina Abramović. Then the body became increasingly rare and completely disappeared in favor of, among other things, everyday objects. Shoes, dresses, suitcases, they keep for Chiharu Shiota the trace and the history of those who wore them.
Signature thread
After the fall of the Wall, she recovered the windows of buildings in East Berlin to depict the gaze of those who, isolated from loved ones, had nothing left to maintain a connection: “When I see the old windows being replaced and discarded on construction sites in Berlin, I remember how East and West were separated for twenty-eight years, and I think of the lives of these people of the same nationality, speaking the same language, of the way they saw their life in Berlin and of the thoughts that crossed their minds.
In silenceall in black threads, resonates with the fire that destroyed her neighbors' house when she was 9 years old. | GrandPalaisRmn 2024 / Didier Plowy – Adagp, Paris, 2024 and the artist
From these dozens of windows, it creates Inside/Outsideone of the many creations brought together for the monographic exhibition “The Soul Trembles”, organized by the Grand Palais in Paris. Over nearly 1,200 square meters, a selection of works traces his evolution, from his first childhood drawing, from one of his very rare paintings (his last oil), to the monumental installations which made his reputation, with their red or black threads, his signature. The visitor is instantly immersed in the intimate universe of Shiota, who sees and puts soul into everything.
Feelings, emotions and memories form the basis of his creations. In silenceall in black threads, resonates with the fire that destroyed her neighbors' house when she was 9 years old; Cells et Rebirth and Passing pose in catharsis in the face of the threat of this ovarian cancer which strikes her twice; the impressive Accumulation / Searching for destination questions this great journey that is existence.
Despite sometimes difficult circulation, linked both to the success of the exhibition and to questionable scenographic choices, “The Soul Trembles” manages, thanks to the space left to the monumental works, to immerse us in the universe at the same time. personal and universal of the Japanese visual artist. And we come away with one certainty, the promise of the exhibition: “Whether they intimidate, surprise or soothe, Chiharu Shiota’s installations never fail to fascinate.”
Chiharu Shiota, “The Soul Trembles”, at the Grand Palais until March 19, 2025.
*The quotes from Chiharu Shiota are taken from the exhibition and the catalog published by GrandPalaisRmnEditions.
