Chiharu Shiota

Chiharu Shiota is known for her site-specific installations in which she weaves enormous webs from black, white, or red yarn and turns entire galleries into labyrinthine environments. Her awe-inspiring works evoke ideas of anxiety, identity, loss, and memory. Shiota’s “The Key in the Hand” display at the 2015 Venice Biennale, where she represented her native Japan, featured more than 50,000 keys dangling from an expansive web of red thread that hovered above two wooden boats. Other memorable works include Lost Words (2017), for which Shiota suspended thousands of ripped Bible pages in 100 different languages inside Berlin’s oldest church, and Counting Memories (2019), in which paper numbers adorned her clouds of dark thread. Shiota has enjoyed exhibitions at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum, the Royal Museum of Fine Arts of Belgium, the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo, and the SCAD Museum of Art, among other institutions. She also produces paintings, photography, video works, drawings, and sculptures, which have sold for six-figure prices.