TRAVELER’S DIARY: Carte Blanche à Chiharu Shiota
To give the Authority to an artist like Chiharu Shiota or as the French say to give her a carte blanche to create in a space dominated by Asian Art like the Musée National des Arts Asiatiques Guimet, perhaps is the biggest challenge for the artist and an invitation for the viewer. From the ground up, the expert or the experienced spectator knows from the beginning that in such a space an artist can only intervene a little, so the exhibition cannot be big, but it can certainly be imposing.
By Efi MIchalarou
Photo: Dimitris Lempesis
From the ground up, the expert or the experienced spectator knows from the beginning that in such a space an artist can only intervene a little, so the exhibition cannot be big, but it can certainly be imposing. Just like Chiharu Shiota’s installations and sculptures. Following the red line on the floor from the ground floor of the museum to its last floor you are guided to a breath-taking huge installation of red threads in the center of the space, only this time the objects are small like children’s toys. To be precise, they are children’s toys that compose a universe that is personal and universal at the same time, since this work was created by the artist during the period of confinement and quarantine that the artist could not travel and is entitled “Living Inside” (2022). Chiharu Shiota is using all these elements as a retrospection to childhood and puerility, but also as an introspection inside the house and the relationships that unite us with the red threads to act for her as protection. The protection we need and our home and our loved ones offer us. The same applies for the four sculptures (micro-installations) that the viewer can discover among the exhibits of the Museum on the other two floors which functions as a memory vessel, here the lighting of the Museum’s exhibits plays an important role. Even more important is that Shiota, through five works, manages to deeply move the viewer, almost to transfix him without fear or to try to confront with the other exhibits (sculptures, objects or jewelry) of the Museum which is equally strong, the power of the hard material disappears, vanishes before the power of the intangible material which is the thread, the light and the transparency. It is probably the strongest challenge between tangible and intangible that those who will be in Paris until June 6, is worth experience(!)
Photo: Chiharu Shiota, Carte blanche à Chiharu Shiota, Exhibition view, Musée National des Arts Asiatiques Guimet (Mnaag)-Paris, 2022, Photo: © & Courtesy Dimitris Lempesis
Info: Curators: Sophie Makariou and Chiharu Shiota, Musée National des Arts Asiatiques Guimet (Mnaag), 6 place d’Iéna, Paris, France, Duration: 16/3-6/6/2022, Days & Hours: Mon & Wed-Sun 10:00-18:00, www.guimet.fr
