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Chiharu Shiota
Japan, 1972
Heir of Ana Mendieta and a whole generation of feminist artists form the early 70’s, Shiota works with her body as an intervention space, realizing performances that deal with our link with the earth, the past and the memory.
Well known for her installations with thread as main material, her symmetric tangles captivate the spectator at first sight, creating feelings that go between safety and fear, fascination and ugliness, while awakening memories, and both absence and existence as philosophical matters.
The presence and absence of her body is the thread running through her work, and ultimately is what makes it possible to understand her confrontation with the question of defining the artwork, the artistic subject and the public, the interior and exterior space.
In Shiota’s philosophy the true artwork is created only when the expectations for familiar artistic forms of expression are abandoned in favor of a perception of things that get by without any attributions of meaning.
She has exhibited at institutions such as Gropius Bau, Mori Art Museum, Jameel Art Centre, Gottesborg Museum, The Art Gallery of South Australia, Louisiana Museum, Kiasma, Hayward Gallery, Fundación Sorigué, Palazzo Reale Milano, The Museum of Kyoto, Maison Rouge, MONA Museum, and Mattress Factory, among others.
She represented Japan at the 56th edition of the Venice Biennale. Additionally, she has designed the scenography for the opera Matsukaze alongside Sasha Waltz and for Tristan and Isolde at KielTeater.
Her work is part of collections such as the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, Fundación Sorigué, Centre Georges Pompidou, and Kiasma, among others.
Chiharu Shiota
State of Being
2019
Thread on metal
35 x 62 x 134 cm
Chiharu Shiota
Endless Line [CS/C 220714]
2022
Thread on canvas
180 x 120 cm
Chiharu Shiota
Drawing for Idomeneo
2023
Watercolor, crayon and thread on paper
32,5 x 24 cm
Chiharu Shiota
Connected to the Universe CS/D 230213
2023
Water-soluble wax pastel, ink and thread on paper
21 x 30 cm
Chiharu Shiota
State of Being (Spiral)
2017
Metal, thread
56 x 57 x 26 cm
Chiharu Shiota
Connected to the Universe
2024
Water-soluble wax pastel, ink and thread on paper
27,5 x 41,5 cm
Chiharu Shiota
Connected to the Universe
2024
Water-soluble wax pastel, ink and thread on paper
42 x 30 cm
Chiharu Shiota
Connected to the Universe
2024
Water-soluble wax pastel, ink and thread on paper
41 x 28,2 cm
Chiharu Shiota
Connected to the Universe
2024
Water-soluble wax pastel, ink and thread on paper
29,8 x 41,2 cm
Chiharu Shiota
Connected to the Universe
2024
Water-soluble wax pastel, ink and thread on paper
41,2 x 29,8 cm
Chiharu Shiota
Connected to the Universe
2024
Water-soluble wax pastel, ink and thread on paper
42,5 x 30,2 cm
Chiharu Shiota
Connected to the Universe
2024
Water-soluble wax pastel, ink and thread on paper
29,5 x 41,5 cm
Each Person, a Universe. Chiharu Shiota. Fundació Tàpies
The Poetics of Thread that Breathes the Body
Creation of spaces within spaces, openings of places in dialogue with the architectures encountered in each territory, with a single goal: to evoke deep emotions and reflections on life, time, memory, and identity. Chiharu Shiota (Osaka, 1972) conceives installations that intimately intertwine with existing structures, themselves carriers of foreign histories. With her immersive and profoundly poetic art, she invites us to explore the mysteries of the universe and the human soul, emphasizing the dichotomy between life and death. Indeed, it is from the eros-thanatos binomial that three central concepts unfold in the exhibition «Each Person, a Universe»: memory, object, and body. Thus, memory becomes essential to understand who we are and where we come from, revealed through the interaction with certain objects. Simultaneously, the body holds the traces provoked by memory’s presence—or, when traumatic, by its absence.
Her installations become social and political, poetic calls, where individual affirmation merges with collectivity.
The whole transforms into a space for reflection and knowledge, opening windows onto a past that belongs to us, approached from the present and with the will to envision a conscious future. At the heart of Shiota’s work lies thread, an apparently simple element yet one of immense symbolic power, serving as the medium through which she weaves her visual narratives. Her intricate webs of thread stretch across spaces like constellations in the night sky, reminding us of the complexity of human relationships and the interconnection of our individual lives. Each thread, each node, carries the story of an encounter, an experience, an emotion, all woven together into a shared tapestry of memory. The color demands attention; the reddish hues of the threads evoke blood. The networks her proposals create resemble circulatory systems or neural connections, each evoking life, a world of infinite possibilities.
In her installations, Shiota uses everyday and domestic objects such as beds, chairs, and clothes to create evocative passages that revive a sense of intimacy and vulnerability. These objects, imbued with the traces of human life, become symbols of our earthly existence, reminding us of life’s fragility and transience. Wrapped within Shiota’s thread webs, they acquire new dimensions of meaning, inviting us to reflect on our own experiences and our connection to others.
Memory is another recurrent theme in Shiota’s work, as she has devoted much of her career to exploring how individual and collective memories shape our identity and our perception of the world. In many of her installations, she uses personal objects such as letters, photographs, and toys to evoke past memories and experiences. Trapped within the webs of thread, these objects become tangible remnants of memory, underscoring the importance of remembrance and honoring the past.
Shiota’s performances are acts of pure moving poetry, where she becomes the instrument of expression. Through simple and repetitive gestures, such as weaving and unraveling thread, she leads us on a journey of introspection and transformation, where time fades and space becomes a blank canvas for the exploration of the human soul. Every action is both an act of creation and destruction, a reminder of the ephemeral nature of existence, an eternal quest for meaning in an ever-changing world.
Importantly, we must consent to be part of the installation’s proposal—to engage in the performative action ourselves; our presence interacting with the thread cosmology evokes memories.
Her art, with its profound emotional resonance and transient beauty, reminds us of humanity’s capacity to create moments laden with deep significance and ancestral connections. Each gesture becoming movement within her spaces rises against the current world, marked by uncertainty, transience, emptiness, and superficiality.
Chiharu Shiota is an artist whose work transcends the boundaries of time and space, inviting us to explore the mysteries and unknown depths of our psyche and subconscious through deeply moving and poetic artistic expression. With each installation and performance—whether performed by herself or by us, the visitors—she reminds us of the beauty and fragility of existence and invites us to contemplate the universe within.
Her art has the power to evoke deep emotions and reflections on life and death. She does so with subtlety and force, and from this natural contradiction, she draws us closer to a single thread, one line that connects and intertwines the individual with the universe. Thousands of connections that generate moments of knowledge. Individual and collective memories, recollections of times and places unknown yet intimately ours.
Within her installations, the pulse between life and death beats: images and words are remembered, neural pathways are traveled by thousands of informational units, specific and unique, yet also common to us all. And it is within these shared spaces that the nodes become forces of creation—but, above all, forces of care and of welcome.
Her red filaments might be seen as cracks through which life seeps, carrying symbolic references: landscapes of empty yet united chairs, or the very threads that take root with metallic feet.
Through this exhibition, we delve into one of humanity’s most crucial dualities, the life-death or eros-thanatos dichotomy—essential to understanding Shiota’s work but also that of Antoni Tàpies. At the same time, it underlines one of the fundamental ontological questions, aiming to open a space for reflection on the importance of memory in our lives.
Chiharu Shiota
Out Of My Body [CS/I 240201]
2024
Cowhide leather, rope
Dimensions variable
Chiharu Shiota
Cell [CS/S 240202]
2024
Glass, metal wire
27.5 x 17.5 x 11 cm
Chiharu Shiota
Cell [CS/S 240203]
2024
Glass, metal wire
28.8 x 19.3 x 7.8 cm
Chiharu Shiota
Cell [CS/S 240204]
2024
Glass, metal wire
26.6 x 28 x 21 cm
Chiharu Shiota
Cell [CS/S 240205]
2024
Glass, metal wire
32 x 27.4 x 17.5 cm
Chiharu Shiota
Cell [CS/S 240206]
2024
Glass, metal wire
41 x 27.5 x 26 cm
Chiharu Shiota
Red Line XIII
2012
Oil and pastel on paper
150 x 100 cm
EARTH AND BLOOD
Chiharu Shiota, born in Osaka in 1972, presents in this latest exhibition a series of works that explore her relationship with nature and her own body. The exhibition features a video installation composed of six videos and an installation with a dress—for her, a symbol of a second skin, something as close to the body as the earth itself, carrying the memories of the person who has worn it on various occasions.
In her work, Chiharu Shiota uses wool, broken windows, shoes, and worn garments. These objects, on the one hand, generate an unsettling sense of repulsion, yet on the other, they reignite memories from the past accumulated over time. Creating an oppressive and claustrophobic atmosphere with her wool structures, her installations place us within a dreamlike space where a certain state of anxiety is evoked.
In an attempt to emotionally recover from a miscarriage, the artist instinctively began working with earth.
«As the exhibition approached, I wondered whether I truly had to work while feeling this way. Then the title ‘Earth and Blood’ came to mind, and I felt completely overwhelmed by a torrent of sadness, anguish, and anxiety. In the end, I am presenting videos and drawings that are extremely dark. I wanted to cover up my feelings but simply could not hide them.»
Connecting back to the performances she carried out early in her career, the artist revisits in this latest work a reflection on her body and exposes her intimacy in a raw and unfiltered way.
Chiharu Shiota
Red Line XII
2012
Oil and pastel on paper
136 x 200 cm
Chiharu Shiota
Red Line XVI
2012
Oil and pastel on paper
150 x 100 cm
Chiharu Shiota
Endless Line
2023
Thread on canvas
140 x 240 cm
Chiharu Shiota
State of Being (Clocks)
2024
Metal frame, thread, pocket watches
45 x 45 x 80 cm
Chiharu Shiota
An Unknown Journey CS/D 250204
2025
Oilstick, watercolor and thread on paper
20 x 25 x 3 cm
Chiharu Shiota
An Unknown Journey CS/D 250203
2025
Oilstick, watercolor and thread on paper
25 x 20 x 3 cm
Chiharu Shiota
Endless Line [CS/C 241109]
2024
Metal frame, suitcases and thread
160 x 140 cm
Chiharu Shiota
Connected to the Universe CS/D240512
2024
Thread on canvas
41,3 x 30,1 cm
Sold. Private collection
Chiharu Shiota
Connected to the Universe [CS/D 241127]
2024
Thread on canvas
41,3 x 30,1 cm
Sold. Private collection
Chiharu Shiota
Solo exhibitions (selection)
2025
Chiharu Shiota: Silent Emptiness, Red Brick Art Museum, China
My House is your House. Chiharu Shiota, Azkuna Zentroa, Bilbao, Spain
2024
I to EYE, Nakanoshima Museum of Art, Osaka
Chiharu Shiota. Cada quien, un Universo, Fundació Antoni Tàpies, Spain
Chiharu Shiota. The Soul Trembles, Grand Palais, Paris
2023
A Tide of Emotions, Vincom Center for Contemporary Art, Hanoi
2022
The Soul Trembles, QAGOMA, Brisbane
Imperfect Game, NF/NIEVES FERNÁNDEZ, Madrid
Internal Line, Museum der bildenden Künste Leipzig (MdbK), Leipzig
Carte blanche, Musée Guimet, Paris
Letters of Love, MOCA Jacksonville, Florida
Tracing Boundaries, EMMA Espoo Museum of Modern Art, Espoo
Multiple Realities, Cisternerne, Copenhagen
2021
The Soul Trembles, Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taipei
Direction of Consciousness, Domaine de Chaumont-sur-Loire
Memory of Water, Towada Art Center, Aomori
Connected to Life, ZKM | Zentrum für Kunst und Medien, Karlsruhe
Lifelines, Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil (CCBB), Rio de Janeiro
2020
The Web of Time, Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, Wellington
Between Us, Gana Art Center, Seoul, South Korea
Lifelines, Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil (CCBB), Brasília
2019
The Soul Trembles, Mori Art Museum, Tokyo
Black Rain, Galerie Templon, Brussels
Line of Thought, Museum Sinclair-Haus, Bad Homburg, Germany
Six Boats, Ginza Six, Tokyo
2018
Remind of…, NF/NIEVES FERNÁNDEZ, Madrid
Artist’s Rooms: Chiharu Shiota, Jameel Arts Center, Dubai, UAE
Embodied, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia
Beyond Time, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Wakefield, UK
Art Project 2018: Chiharu Shiota, The Wanås Foundation, Knislinge, Sweden
The Distance, Gottesborg Museum, Sweden
Form of Memory, Kenji Taki Gallery, Tokyo, Japan
The Butterfly Dream, The Museum of Kyoto, Japan
2017
Direction, KODE-Art Museum of Bergen, Bergen, Norway
Lost Words, Museum Nikolaikirche, Berlin, Germany
Chiharu Shiota – New Works, Kenji Taki Gallery, Nagoya, Japan
Between the Lines, Het Noordbrabants Museum, ’s-Hertogenbosch, Netherlands
Destination, Galerie Daniel Templon, Paris, France
Where are we going?, Le Bon Marché Rive Gauche, Paris
Infinity Lines, SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah, Georgia, USA
Under the Skin, Kunsthalle Rostock, Germany
2016
Absent Bodies, Anna Schwartz Gallery, Australia
Chiharu Shiota – Solo Show, Kenji Taki Gallery, Nagoya, Japan
The Locked Room, KAAT Kanagawa Arts Theater, Yokohama, Japan
Uncertain Journey, Blain | Southern, Berlin
Rain of Memories, Ferenczy Múzeum, Hungary
Follow the Line, Mimmo Scognamiglio Artecontemporanea, Milan
Sleeping is like Death, Galerie Daniel Templon, Brussels
2015
Seven Dresses, Staadtgalerie, Saarbrucken, Germany
The Key in the Hand, 56th Venice Biennale, Japan Pavilion
In the beginning was, Fundación Sorigué, Lleida
Searching for the Destination, SESC, São Paulo, Brazil
Follow the Line, Japan Foundation, Cologne and Rome
A Long Day, K21 – Kunstsammlung NRW, Düsseldorf, Germany
2014
Obra invitada, Bilbao Fine Arts Museum
First House, Zorlu Center Performing Arts, Istanbul
Cartas de agradecimiento, Espai d’Art Contemporani, Castellón
La Tenutta dello Scompligio, Lucca, Italy
Earth and Blood, Galería NF/Nieves Fernández, Madrid
Presence in the Absence, Rochester Art Center, USA
Dialogues, New Art Gallery, Walsall, UK
Tristan Und Isolde, Kiel Theater, Germany
Group exhibitions (selection)
2022
Nuqta, The Beginning, TRANSIENT Interdisciplinary Research Festival, Düsseldorf
2019
Nine Journeys Through Time, YUZ Museum, Shanghai, China
From the Paper to the Wall, Galerie Templon, Brussels
Who opens up the world?, Toyota Municipal Museum of Art, Aichi, Japan
Setouchi Art Triennale, Teshima, Japan
Globe as a Palette, Hokkaido Obihiro Museum of Art, Kushiro, Hakodate, Sapporo Art Museums, Japan
And Berlin Will Always Need You, Gropius Bau, Berlin
Honolulu Biennial – Make Wrong / Right / Now, Honolulu, Hawaii
100 Jahre Revolution – Berlin 1918/19, Podewil & Alexanderplatz, Berlin
2018
Travelers: Stepping into the Unknown, The National Museum of Art, Osaka, Japan
Water and Land – Niigata Art Festival, Niigata, Japan
Höhenrausch – The Other Shore, OÖ Kulturquartier, Linz, Austria
The Marvellous Cacophony, 57th Oktobarski Salon, Belgrade, Serbia
The Riddle of Art, Takahashi Collection, Shizuoka, Japan
Das letzte Bild, Stadtgalerie Saarbrücken, Germany
Constellation Malta, Valletta 2018 European Capital of Culture, Malta
Nine Journeys Through Time, Palazzo Reale, Milan, Italy
2017
Portrait of the Gallery, Institut Culturel Bernard Magrez, Bordeaux, France
Kairos Castle, Gaasbeek Castle, Lennik, Belgium
Pafos European Capital of Culture, Pafos, Cyprus
The Other Side, Wilhelm Hack Museum, Ludwigshafen, Germany
A Summer in Le Havre, Le Havre, France
2016
The Future is Already Here, 20th Biennale of Sydney, Australia
In Your Heart and in Your City, KØS Museum, Køge, Denmark
Spider’s Thread, Toyota Municipal Museum of Art, Aichi, Japan
From Here Until Eternity, Maison Particulière, Brussels
Melbourne Festival, Melbourne, Australia
Collection 2 – Diray, 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, Japan
Art Unlimited, Art Basel, Switzerland
2015
Espace Culturel Louis Vuitton, Paris
No hablaremos de Picasso, Fundación María José Jové, Galicia
Foundation, Cologne and Rome (itinerant)
Awards
2012
Audience Choice, ARSENALE – First Kyiv International Biennale of Contemporary Art, Kyiv, Ukraine
Appointed as Commissioner for Cultural Affairs to visit Australia, Japanese Agency for Cultural Affairs
2009
Distinguished Service Medal, Kyoto Seika University, Kyoto, Japan
Montblanc Culture Award, Docks Art Fair, Lyon, France
2008
Award from the Ministry of Education and Culture of Japan
Sakuya Kono Hana Prize, Osaka, Japan
2002
Philip Morris Award, New York
Museums and collections
Centre PasquArt, Biel/Bienne, Switzerland
Sammlung Verbund, Vienna, Austria
21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa
Antoine de Galbert Collection, Paris
The Hoffman Collection, Berlin
Kiasma, Helsinki, Finland
Kunstwerk-Sammlung Alison and Peter W. Klein, Nussdorf
Museum für Neue Kunst, Freiburg, Germany
Shiseido Art House, Kakegawa, Shizuoka
The National Museum of Art, Osaka
The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo
The Vangi Sculpture Garden Museum, Shizuoka
Fundació Sorigué, Lleida
Fundación María José Jové Collection, Galicia
Museum für Neue Kunst, Freiburg, Germany
Ömer Koç Collection, Istanbul, Turkey
MONA – Museum of Old and New Art, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia
Toyota Municipal Museum of Art, Aichi, Japan
Takamatsu City Museum of Art, Kagawa, Japan
Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, Fukuoka, Japan
Centre Pompidou, Paris