Chiharu Shiota: Geneva

8 November 2023 - 30 March 2024

Installation Views

Overview

OLIVIER VARENNE is very proud to present a group of new 2 and 3 dimensional works by Chiharu Shiota. A group of new sculptures (State of Being), works on canvas (Endless Line) and works on paper (Connected to the Universe), all created in 2023.

Olivier Varenne has worked with Shiota for many years: first discovering her work on a trip to Japan in 2007 he included her in the 3rd Moscow Biennale which he co-curated in 2009. He also worked with Shiota with on & on at La Casa Encendida, Madrid (2010-2011), and curated a show of four new works by the artist at Detached in Hobart, Australia in association with Mona Foma. Her work was included in the exhibition The Red Queen at Mona from 2013-2014 which posed the question, ‘why do humans make art?’ Olivier is therefore particularly pleased to be showing and celebrating his years of association with Shiota and her work in his gallery in Geneva.

“Everyone is connected if you are part of society. People are connected to each other, but we are also linked to the universe. I feel like I have a universe inside of me and it is also connected to the outside universe that is why I paint this vast pattern. It looks organic like the cell in our bodies, but because it is big it also resembles the universe that surrounds us."

CHIHARU SHIOTA (b. 1972)

Chiharu Shiota is known for her exploration of the intangible. Working with a variety of media her personal experiences are often the starting point, through which she questions universal issues such as identity, boundaries and existence – and thus the relationships between the body, memory, life and death.

Red and black, pastel or thread feature heavily in Shiota’s work. Rich in symbolism, the colour red for the artist alludes to our connectedness to each other, the interior of the body and the complex network of neural connections in the brain. Pastel or thread are fluid, expressive and immediate materials – and respond to the emotive associations of the colour. About both colour and media the artist has said: “Red is, of course, the colour of blood, and also in Japan there is a fable that a red string links people though time to their destiny. The legend says that a thin vein connects the heart to the pinky finger. And a red thread then connects from your pinky finger to your future lover. The red string may become tangled, postponing the meeting point, but it can never break. It’s to do with fate and about the strength of human relationships.”

Based in Berlin, Osaka-born Shiota represented Japan at The Venice Biennale in 2015 with her work The Key in the Hand. Using red thread to ‘draw’ in three dimensions, she wove intricate networks of yarn across spaces, incorporating over 50,000 keys. She explained: ‘Keys are familiar and very valuable things that protect important people and spaces in our lives. They also inspire us to open the door to unknown worlds’.

Shiota travelled to Germany in 1996 in order to study under Marina Abramovich. She studied painting early on and then used her own body in performance pieces. She later turned to using thread as it allowed her to remove her physical presence from her works yet still address ideas central to her practice.

Download the press release for a full presentation of the works in the show.