The third Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art. Chiharu Shiota
ARTinvestment.RU   14 сентября 2009

ARTinvestment.RU tells about the artist of Japanese origin, famous for his installations-“cobwebs”

From 24 September to 25 October 2009 in Moscow will host The Third International Biennale of Contemporary Art. Among its members - artist Chiharu Shiota (Chiharu Shiota, another variant of pronunciation - Chiharu Shiota), famous for his installations, "web", in which objects are entangled black woolen threads. One of her projects included in the program "Classics of Modern Art».

Shiota was born in 1972 in Osaka. Since 1999, she lives in Berlin, but its Japanese origin not forget - one of the main themes of her art are the roots. In 2008, Shiota presented the installation "Traces of Life", for which she graced the facade of one house in Berlin ... shoes. She hung 600 shoes and boots on the red threads that converge at one point under the eaves on the top floor. All the shoes are different, they seemed to scatter in different directions. They are united only place, the point from which they went "to the world" and to which they will always be attached. Similarly, in humans: wherever life throws us and our origins will always be an essential part of our "I". Red Shiota chosen at random: in the "traces of life" thread act "in the role of" blood ties that bind man to his birthplace.

work of many famous artists from Japan are - Takashi Murakami (Takashi Murakami), Makoto Aida (Makoto Aida) and others - is a critical commentary on contemporary Japanese mass culture. In art Shiota, this component is not dominant. "Motherland" at her - rather abstract concept. In 1999, the artist has arranged a performance in which she was sitting in the bath, emptied a bucket of wet earth. "Merge with the earth" - is to return home, not in vain and the earth and called home mother ... "I'll never wash off the memories that are absorbed into my skin," - said Shiota. As in "Traces of Life", this work - that it is impossible to deny that makes a man as he is. Another theme of the performance - the desire to return to some initial state, to feel his humanity, as well as "to pollution", the inability to integrate into society, dominated by rituals of purification.

year earlier, Shiota, made a performance "Try and go home." She was starving for four days, then fell into the pit, where her "clothes" were the earth and leaves. This work refers to the creation of the beloved artist Shiota, Cuban-American Ana Mendieta (Ana Mendieta), in which often sounds theme of unity of women with nature. Still have pictures of Mendieta, where the naked artist, embodying "merged" with the tree trunk, strewn with leaves or lying prone on the ground. Stuttgart Kunstverein gallery curator Andrea Yang (Andrea Jahn), wrote an article about creativity Chiharu Shiota, notes that these works have Mendieta and subtext - the artist does not so much seeking to become a part of nature, exploring how the patriarchal stereotype of the woman - there are far more "natural" (landing) than men. According to the curator, the very name of the performance Shiota said that in the unity with the nature of modern man is not capable of, how many do not test. In 2001 an unnamed performance artist connects himself to the ground with red threads. The red color at the same time and recalls the blood ties, and contrasts sharply with the color of the body and the grass, preventing them from merging.

Andrea Yang also points to the relationship between creativity Shiota with the philosophy of Japanese butoh dance. "Ankoku Butoh" (which means "dance of darkness"), in the words of the founder of the troupe of the same name by Tatsumi Hijikata (Tatsumi Hijikata), «born out of the mud. Butoh is one of the most important "creations" of the Japanese avant-garde of the last century. As a dance critic wrote of the journal Nipponia Keisuke Sakurai (Keisuke Sakurai), «dancing, from ballet to the XVII century, most forms of modern dance, relied, and relies on the motion ... But Hijikata made a revolution in this representation, with special emphasis not on the motion of a body, and on the body as such. Butoh dancers, often performing naked, do not aspire to the beauty of movement, for them is more important than the primitive expression. Land - a key concept in their philosophy: in contrast to, for example, from dancers who want to defeat gravity, they "do not do jumps. They often grows to the ground without lifting the body and holding it down ».

As butoh dancers, Chiharu Shiota wants to" connect the body with the universe. She studied with Marina Abramovic (Marina Abramović), become famous for its extreme performance. Body subjected to various ordeals, is the main material Abramovich, whose work "talk" about the destructive passions and violence. Appeal to the theme of the body has had a decisive influence on the work Shiota, which, we note at the beginning of his career to paint. At its first exhibition, arranged, when the artist was only 20 years old, exhibited only a picture. But soon she had been disappointed in this kind of art. "And there was, so to say, my" technical time "- only his eyes, brushes and paints. No feelings, only one technique. As many as half a year I had a feeling that I had reached an impasse and stamping in one spot. To me it was not art. " Like the great European modernists of the last century, Shiota found inspiration in the ethnographic museum. "There were various figures and artifacts, brought from Africa. And color. Telá. Arts, combined with life. " Shiota started to think about new ways to express their thoughts. After a while she went to Australia. In 1994, she presented a performance in Canberra's Transfiguration in the picture, where it spattered themselves (and the walls of the gallery) with red paint. This gesture can be perceived as a symbolic farewell to the painting - spraying himself with paint, the artist would like to announce that it will canvas own body. Using red, she says about the sincerity of art: every job, every material - is "flesh" of the artist.

Shiota soon realized that her interest to the border states - between life and death, between sleep and reality. The human body has begun to appear in her work less and less, and his place was taken by things that remind him. In 1996, Shiota exhibited his first "spider's web", called "Return to consciousness. It has entangled the whole room with woolen threads, and so closely that enter into the room was impossible. In the heart of the web gleamed ampulla with the blood of the artist. The installation serves as a metaphor of the body, located on the verge of death (or in a state of lethargy), in which lukewarm life. In 2000, the artist presented the work of "Memoirs of the skin, to which hung in a series of 22 long white dresses, each seven meters in length. All the dresses were covered with earth, on top of them, pouring water. Of course, this work brings us to the ideas of performance "Bathroom" - the land as a metaphor of origin, "roots", is perfectly still buried in the body. Dresses also reminded of the human body ( "traces of life") and serve as a symbol of eternity, which is much greater than human nature - hence the huge size. A long white dress in a timeless, for many centuries, it is associated with sleep and death (as a nightgown, robe, hospital and funeral shroud), as well as the bride (in many cultures, the wedding rituals have been built on what was considered a woman who marries a girl standing at the crossroads of two worlds - she "died" in his family and re-born in the clan of the groom). Shiota uses white dresses quite often: in some installations, they are woven into a black spider's web, while others serve as a "starting point" from which the different sides stretch red thread.

In 2000, the artist has created a web of four hospital beds, one of which she sometimes asleep. The performance was called "While we sleep. In another piece, "Fear of ..." (2003), there was only one bed, in which Shiota, completely naked, sitting with her back to the audience. Many visitors say that the installation of the artist evokes the ghosts of Japanese films - such as "Call", which appear "Yurei" - a woman with long black hair, the most famous kind of Japanese ghosts. In "Fear of ..." black filaments can serve as a continuation of the artist's hair, and then the whole installation can be seen as a ghostly, supernatural body. However, it should be noted, the artist does not want to scare the viewer, but rather wants to create a situation of the country, lethargic repose. One can recall the work of the most famous artist, uses the image of a spider - Louise Bourgeois (Louise Bourgeois). Her sculptures, symbolize the spider is not evil and cunning (usually associated with these little hairy creation), and maternal love. It is known that spider, eggs, jealous care of the cocoon. And the cocoon, and the Web can mean peace, but the image of a cocoon of tranquility says mother's womb, and the Web - on the inevitability of death.

In 2002 the artist presented a version of the performance "During sleep, where all beds were sleeping girl. For the I International Biennial of Seville, which was held in 2004, it is "romanticized" their work, made it more cinematic: instead of black thread, she decided to use the vines. The result was the installation "From - inside, not the castle-like Sleeping Beauty, not that any greenhouse. Interestingly, the walls of "greenhouse" were decorated with old windows that the artist gathered in Berlin. Since then, Shiota often uses in its work to the window, once belonged to the now demolished or renovated homes. According to the artist, windows, whose function - serve as a clear boundary between the private, "small" world and the public, "keep the memory" of the inhabitants are no longer existing buildings. Its huge structures out of the windows finds expression is another important theme of her art: the theme of silence. She drew attention to the fact that the inheritance of objects that she uses - whether it be windows, shoes, clothes, furniture or anything else - it is quiet, but they were all charged with human energy.

most famous work Shiota, no doubt, is the installation of 2002 "In the silence". The creation of this installation artist inspired by childhood memories of fire from the neighbors. In her mind imprinted image of a burning piano, and she decided to enter it into their work. Artist set fire to a piano and a chair, and when they are completely charred, she wrapped them in black thread. Thus, subjects had lost their inner contents, but retained the form. Here is what Shiota said: "What remains - is silence. The more I think about it, the stronger the feeling. Uprights are no longer making a sound, the artist no longer paints a picture, the musician no longer playing music. They lose their function, but not beauty - they become even more beautiful. " A burned-out chair can not sit on the charred piano can not play - they still exist, but in our minds they have already turned into ghosts. Placing them in their webs, the artist translated the items into sleep. A few years later she met another version of this installation, this time with a much larger number of chairs.

Before installing Shiota occupied an entire room, but in recent years it has begun to place their black "web" containers. It is worth noting installation 2006 "Trauma", which is against the backdrop of pristine white walls of the gallery looks simply amazing.

В мае этого года состоялся «аукционный дебют» Тихару Сиота. DVD с ее перформансом «Ванная» принесло на токийском аукционе Shinwa сумму, эквивалентную 3,8 тысячи евро. Стоит ожидать, что в будущем на торгах будет появляться все больше произведений художницы.

Материал подготовила Юлия Максимова, AI

Источники: chiharu-shiota.com, artprice.com, iatp.md/contemporarydance/present/buto.html, artinvestment.ru

P.S. Об участниках третьей Московской биеннале современного искусства можно прочитать:

Третья Московская биеннале современного искусства. AES + F
third Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art. Кристиан Марклей
Третья Московская биеннале современного искусства. Юрий Альберт
Третья Московская биеннале современного искусства. El Anatsui
third Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art. Михаил Гробман
Третья Московская биеннале современного искусства. Тони Крэгг
Третья Московская биеннале современного искусства. Павел Пепперштейн
Третья Московская биеннале современного искусства. Мастерская Ван Лисхаут
Третья Московская биеннале современного искусства. Владимир Сычёв
Третья Московская биеннале современного искусства. Люк Тюйманс