Chiharu Shiota — The Soul Trembles — Les Galeries nationales du Grand Palais — Exhibition — Slash Paris

In 19 days: December 11, 2024 → March 19, 2025

As a preview of the reopening of all its galleries in June 2025, the Grand Palais is presenting an exhibition dedicated to the poetic and sensitive work of Japanese artist Chiharu Shiota.

Born in Osaka, Japan in 1972, Chiharu Shiota lives and works in Berlin. She combines performance, body art and installations in a process centred on the body. Shiota has been exhibited around the world, including at the P.S.1 Contemporary Art Centre, New York (2003), K21 Kunstsammlung NRW, Düsseldorf (2014) and the Smithsonian, Washington DC (2014).

In 2015, Shiota represented Japan at the Venice Biennale. In 2018, she exhibited at the Museum of Kyoto.

Since the mid-90s, the artist has produced installations of interlacing wool yarn, creating spectacular graphic networks through which the visitor must find their way and their place. These giant canvases often envelop objects from her everyday life (chairs, beds, pianos, clothes, etc.) and invite the viewer on a majestic, dreamlike journey.

Though famous for her entangled pieces, the artist’s practice also extends to sculpture, photography, video and drawing, and a body of this work will be presented in the exhibition. Her protean creations explore the notions of temporality, movement and dreams, demanding a dual engagement from the viewer, both mental and physical.

The exhibition, co-organised with the Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, is the largest exhibition ever dedicated to the artist, spanning over 20 years of her career. The first major monographic exhibition to be held in a museum in France and Europe, it will give visitors an immersive experience through several monumental installations covering over 1,200 square metres.

Having experienced the fragility of the life she has been granted, directly and on multiple occasions, Shiota hopes that this exhibition will be able to transmit the tremors of her own soul to others, with her entire body. With seven large-scale installations,

sculptures, photographs, drawings, performance videos and archive documents related to its staging project, the exhibition represents an opportunity for visitors to familiarise themselves with Shiota’s career, which spans over twenty years.