Awareness: Artist Spotlight 15 - Chiharu Shiota (1972-present)

Working with thread and hoses, exclusively in black, white, and red, Chiharu Shiota creates large scale installations within and between rooms. Shiota creates networks out of space and thread, and moves between creating completely non-objective and organic spaces and more rigidly defined areas framed in wood or steel. In her complex and almost psychedelic networks, Shiota often includes everyday objects, and meaningful items that tie into her themes of "life, death, and relationships." Her work, shown at the Try-Me Gallery, inspired me and connected with my ideas of representations of suspension, support, and unstable balances. In addition, the 'obscuring' effect that much of her work creates intertwined with my concepts of limiting view to my sculpture and balancing what is hidden with what is shown.

Uncertain Journey. 2017. Chiharu Shiota. Metal boats, red wool. Noordbrabants Museum, s’Hertogenbosch, Netherlands

Chiharu Shiota

• Chiharu Shiota was born in Osaka, Japan in 1972
• Shiota left Japan and studied in Berlin with Marina Abramovic, a Serbian performance artist
• Shiota still lives in Berlin, and continues to incorporate performative aspects into her thread networks
• While Shiota is best known for her large scale installations, she has made a number of smaller works and series, encapsulating smaller objects in metal frames and networks or systems of thread.
• Shiota enlists helpers or assistants to assemble the installations in the place they were designed for.
• She has created work for spaces ranging from museums to shopping malls
  
• Shiota uses a very specific color scheme (black, red, white) to create a certain look.
• Her work balances "monumental" and "delicate," creating a duality of the two that remains in tension.

State of Being (Child's Dress). 2011. Chiharu Shiota. Steel, wool thread, paint, child's cotton dress. 27 1/2" x 17 3/4" x 17 3/4". Try-Me Gallery, Richmond VA.

 Sources to Look at:
Look through Shiota's other work. Take some notes and save a couple pieces that stand out to you and that show the different styles/mediums/concepts that Shiota focuses on: https://www.chiharu-shiota.com/works
Read this Article about Installation Art. It's a little long but get through as much as you can: https://www.theartstory.org
Watch the following short video. Pay attention to the cross media concepts she discusses.

Questions: 
1. Shiota talks some about other media in the video, and had experience with performance art among her other artistic work. What connections do you see between Shiota's different styles and mediums, and what differences? Compare her use of an unorthodox medium to Mark Bradford's "painting with paper."
2. What is something you learned about the use and purpose of installation art as opposed to traditional art that is contained as an object? How does Shiota use installation to augment and emphasize her work, and would her art work without the installation aspect?
3. What lessons or ideas do you take away from Shiota (either negative or positive) for your own art and sculpture? Do you think your work might benefit, either now or in the future, from becoming more of an installation-style work? 

Sources Used:
https://www.chiharu-shiota.com/six-boats
http://www.try-me.org/gallery/shiota.php
https://www.artsy.net/artist/chiharu-shiota
https://www.blainsouthern.com/exhibitions/direction
https://www.theartstory.org/movement-installation-art-history-and-concepts.htm
http://www.arndtfineart.com/website/artist_9799?idx=s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L51F-TLl_Tk