Chiharu Shiota, Internal Line | Linha Interna
Japan House, São Paulo
November 13, 2019—February 2, 2020

download press release [english] [portuguese]

The show Internal Line | Linha Interna by Chiharu Shiota, consists of a central installation of the same name conceived for the gallery on the ground floor of Japan House São Paulo.

Chiharu’s work essentially involves materials and actions from her daily life, such as yarn and the act of weaving, often attributed to the woman’s world, but which the artist uses – as can be seen in this exhibition – in a monumental and visceral way. The tangle she conceived is composed of precise lines, resulting from her act of creation, and strung by hand through the space. This spatial occupation refers to both the tradition of weaving and to oriental calligraphy. The tireless and repetitive gestures give vent to a copious and complex expanded drawing, whose beginning, middle and end remain unknown. The red lines are an allusion to the blood that runs through our veins and which unites us, like internal, guiding lines. These lend sustainability to three absent beings, represented here by their clothing – suspended, autonomous and interlinked as though by an umbilical cord, allowing for the existence, exchange and safekeeping of the memory of an ephemeral experience.

Chiharu Shiota is both a witness and protagonist of her time. The passage from the 20th to the 21st century is present in her personal and artistic path: post-feminism, post-Eurocentrism and post-globalization are premises for the deepening of a dialogue in the cultural and social sphere.

"Centred in this new created space is a physical presence. A body of accumulated memory. Our dress is not only our second skin but goes beyond our skin colour and nationality. And while our dress accompanies us in our daily life, it becomes the accumulation of our memories, which we collect everyday. But the body is turned inside out. The complex network of blood vessels revealed, as blood connects us, it is the one thing that we all share.”
Chiharu Shiota

Visitors to the show are invited to explore the potential narrative of the artwork architectured in an open, appealing network that stimulates the creation of new bonds.

In its content, Internal line | Linha interna reveals guidelines of the artist’s subjective universe and/or remote relation with Brazil. During her youth, her father thought about emigrating to Brazil, but never did. Whenever she has had the opportunity to get to know the city of São Paulo, either on the occasion of her first show in Brazil, at Sesc Pinheiros, in 2015, or in 2019, with simultaneous shows at Japan House São Paulo and at the Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, Chiharu Shiota has been struck by the great number of people of Asian ancestry who live in the local society. This could have been her place, her sociocultural alignment!

Tereza de Arruda
Curator

Japan House, São Paulo, Brazil [visit website]
Av. Paulista 52
Exhibition period: November 13, 2019—February 2, 2020