Chiharu Shiota — Destination — Templon Gallery — Exhibition — Slash Paris

Past: May 20 → July 22, 2017

Following her eye-catching work at the Bon Marché Rive Gauche in Paris in early 2017, Japanese artist Chiharu Shiota is returning to both Galerie Templon’s spaces with a spectacular site-specific installation and a series of new sculptures.

She explains: ‘I have been using boats since my exhibition at the Japan Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2015; I wanted to create one oversized boat representing the topics I have touched on in my most recent works. Ships carry people and time. They feature a defined direction, with no other choice but to keep moving forward. Though we may not know where we are heading, we can never stop. Life is a journey of uncertainty and wonder, and the boats symbolize the bearers of our dreams and hopes.’

Chiharu Shiota, Chiharu Shiota, 2011 Courtesy Galerie Daniel Templon Paris et Bruxelles. © Chiharu Shiota. Photo : Sunhi Mang

A huge 5-metre boat, the frame of its hull resembling a human skeleton, floats in a sea of red yarn. It is mirrored by a smaller 3.5 metre boat on the ground. Following on from the environment they create is a diptych of paintings, the Skins, depicting ambiguous yet poetic representations of the body, its surface, its networks of connections. A series of red yarn sculptures ensnaring various objects, such as a dress and a weapon, completes an ensemble that raises the metaphysical questions that face us as humans, the difficulty we have understanding the world, and the complex relations that link us.

Chiharu Shiota, Chiharu Shiota, State of Being (Children’s Dress), 2017 Metal frame, thread and children’s dress — 31 ½ × 17 ¾ × 17 ¾ in. Courtesy Galerie Daniel Templon Paris et Bruxelles. © Chiharu Shiota. Photo : Sunhi Mang

‘During humanity’s early years, death used to be connected to human life’s destination. It could be easier to find an answer to the question of our purpose in life. We were more aware of the creative processe and the different steps along the way. Nowadays, we build and create on a massive scale, including things we don’t need, with no clear goal in sight, at a vertiginous speed…’

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Born in 1972 in the Japanese city of Osaka, Chiharu Shiota has been living and working in Berlin since 1997. She made her name with vast environments created from woven wool yarns. Her radical and protean artistic explores the notions of the body, temporality, movement, memory and dreams. Her site-specific installations are often the theatre for performances designed by the artist to engage mentally and physically with viewers.

In recent years, the artist’s work has been widely exhibited around the world, including at the Kiev Biennale of Contemporary Art (2012), Japan’s Kochi Museum of Art and Manege in Moscow (2013), Freer & Sacler Gallery, Smithsonian, Washington DC (2014), Venice Biennale and K21 Kunstsammlung NRW, Düsseldorf (2014), Scad Museum of Art, Savannah (USA) and New Museum of Jakarta (2017). The Kunsthalle Rostock is holding a solo exhibition of her work starting on 5 May 2017.

In France, her work has featured at Maison Rouge (2011), La Sucrière in Lyon (2012), Carré St Anne in Montpellier (2013), Vielle Charité in Marseille (2014), the Louis Vuitton cultural centre (2015) and Bon Marché Rive Gauche (2017). To mark Le Havre’s 500-year celebration, from 27 May to 8 October 2017 Chiharu Shiota will be presenting Accumulation of power, a site-specific installation at the famous St Joseph Church in Le Havre designed by architect Auguste Perret.