VIDEO: Chiharu Shiota-On Exhibitions

To Chiharu Shiota, known for her immersive and complex installations of a tangled web, the exhibition space is something she cannot live without. She explains: “I kept studying art until I was 30 years old. I went to art school for a very long time because you cannot do exhibitions right after your graduation.”

Chiharu Shiota also remembers the first exhibition she made: “When I had my first exhibition, I really put all my energy into it. And even though there only came maybe one or two people to see the exhibition, I had given everything of myself to this exhibition,” she says and continues: “Someone saw it, and gradually the stage became bigger.” To her, the lesson is clear: “When you make an exhibition to the best of your ability, I am sure that someone will see it, and the world will open up for you.”

Chiharu Shiota (b. 1972) is a Japanese performance and installation artist. Shiota was born in Osaka and studied at Kyoto Seika University from 1992 to 1996. She also studied at Canberra School of Art, Hochschule für Bildende Künste, Braunschweig, and Universität der Künste, Berlin. In Braunschweig, she was a student of performance artist Marina Abramovic. Shiota is known for her site-specific installations, which weave enormous webs from black, red, and white yarn. In 2015 she represented Japan in the 56th Venice Biennale with the piece “The Key in the Hand.” Chiharu Shiota has exhibited worldwide, including at Taipei Fine Art Museum, the Royal Museum of Fine Arts of Belgium, Mori Art Museum in Tokyo, the SCAD Museum of Art, Blain Southern Berlin, and the Yorkshire Sculpture Park.

Chiharu Shiota was interviewed by Roxanne Bagheshirin Lærkesen in her studio in Berlin, Germany, in March 2022 in connection to her “Multiple Realities” exhibition at Cisternerne in Copenhagen, Denmark, Camera: Mark Nickels and Rasmus Quistgaard, Produced and edited by: Roxanne Bagheshirin Lærkesen, © Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, 2022, Louisiana Channel is supported by Den A.P. Møllerske Støttefond, Ny Carlsbergfondet, C.L. Davids Fond og Samling and Fritz Hansen