After Tokyo, Japan and Taipei, China, the Japanese artist "Chiharu Shiota: The Trembling Soul" came to Shanghai, and the red thread in the exhibition hall weaves the artist's inner world and interprets her understanding of life. These huge devices woven with threads contain "things" such as boats and suitcases, which point to temporality and Eastern philosophy, so is there a kind of "matter" that stretches through the past and the present in "trembling"? Can the extravagant display method be traced back to the layout of Han Fu? The so-called "trembling soul" In visual oppression, is it the soul or the object and the material nature that vibrate?
Chiharu Shiota, Journey of the Unknown, 2016/2021, Metal Frame, Red Line, Long Museum Exhibition, Photo by Shaunley VG Bild-Kunst in Bonn, Germany and Chiharu Shiota
"Yantian Qianchun's Largest Solo Exhibition: The Fluttering Soul" was recently exhibited at the Shanghai Long Museum (West Bund). The Paper's Art Review previously described it in a report: "Chiharu Shiota is famous for her performance and installation art, expressing emotions about intangible things such as memory, anxiety, dreams, and silence. Her work, rooted in personal experience, appeals to audiences around the world by questioning seemingly universal concepts such as identity, boundaries, and survival. Among them, the huge installation that runs through the entire space, which is made of dense red and black lines intertwined, is the representative series of Shiota Chiharu. "This comment is accurate. Indeed, there are many people who "tremble" in front of The Huge Installation of Chiharu Shiota.
However, some of them are the vibration of the soul, and some of them are moving by the wind.
In my opinion, the title of "vibrating soul" is actually an imaginary misreading of positive energy. The whole exhibition is presented in the visual oppression, not only the vibration of the soul, but also the objects and materialities that make the soul vibrate. Moreover, the latter has a greater proportion. As a result of the use, destruction, and imaginary restoration and gestasis of these "things," Hölderlin's phrase "poetic dwelling," which was widely disseminated through Heidegger, vibrated into the memory of red and black, blood and fire. Therefore, the important thing in this exhibition is not the "trembling soul", but the collapse and destruction of the objects and materialities that make the soul tremble. In the incompleteness of things, the soul is displaced, frightened, anxious, trembling.
Some commentators have said that Chiharu Shiota is an artist who is even more paranoid than Yayoi Kusama. Maybe. However, her paranoia lacked the weight of the earth in front of the German artist Kiefer.
Anselm Kiefer's The Desolate Landscape
After Auschwitz, the earth became a ruin. Beyond the ruins, there is nothing. The same trauma, Kiefer's trauma is irreparable despair, while Shiota Chiharu's traumatic memory is repairable. Those suitcases suspended by red lines symbolize drifting and wandering, but also imply the hope of returning to their hometown. Those daily necessities that are wrapped and pulled by various red threads also contain hope. The red line is blood and blood. This is true of the red line, and it is true of the black line. Whether it is the black line or the red line, they are all concerned about the distant homeland and childhood. Novalis said that poetry is the poet's impulse to find his hometown with strong nostalgia. Lu Ji's "Thoughts return to the Order" said that "thinking of returning to the home, indignant into the chapter", also basically means this.
However, the hope is there, and so is the disappointment. The more hope, the greater the disappointment. Lu Xun said that hope and despair are both illusory. Therefore, the black and black lines are the other expression of Chiharu Shiota: disappointment in hope.
Chiharu Shiota, In Silence, 2002/2021, Charred piano and chair, black lines; Long Museum exhibition scene, Photo by Shaunley VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, Germany, and Chiharu Shiota
As a contemporary artist, Chiharu Shiota has received widespread acclaim. However, once it enters its narrative discourse, its original narrative resource is still the ancient poem "Feeling things and thinking, weeping and weeping". Shioda Chiharu is nothing more than a "thing" that is partially magnified and felt, and it is beyond the imagination of ordinary people. Amplification, unlimited amplification, is one of the techniques of contemporary art.
Shiota Chiharu
A fashionable concept in contemporary art is "time". Unfortunately, the temporality of "things" was also expressed by the ancients. "I have been walking for a long time" "The dead things change with the festivals". The reason why "things" can carry time is because of its inherent eternity and phenomenal changes, such as spring and autumn, resulting in the phenomenon of time passing. Therefore, in terms of things, material properties, feelings, and sentimental sadness, Shiota Chiharu did not essentially surpass the "mourning and sadness of the death when feeling" in Lu Ji's "Dong Tao Xing".
However, Shiota Chiharu's patience and endurance as a contemporary artist still shocked me. Her various suitcases hung with red lines reminded me of my experience at the airport customs travel inspection site. At that time, I often saw inbound and outbound passengers' suitcases plastered with their luggage tags at airports around the world. Every baggage tag represents a place, a journey, an experience.
Chiharu Shiota, Gathering - In Search of Home, 2014/2021, Luggage, Motor, Red Line; Long Museum Exhibition Scene, Photo by Shaunley VG Bild-Kunst in Bonn, Germany and Chiharu Shiota
The Hanshu Yiwenzhi discusses lefu poetry: "Feeling the joy of mourning, it happens because of events." "Shiota Chiharu and his art, as I smell.
After emphasizing Chiharu Shiota's expression of "things" and "material properties", I would like to return to another exhibition called "Making the Most of Things". The authors of this exhibition are Chinese contemporary artist Song Dong and his mother Zhao Xiangyuan.
"Make the Most of It" is a super-large contemporary art installation. It consists of 10,000 worn-out, mutilated, or even unused household items. If these objects are not displayed in art galleries, but appear in the streets and alleys, the whole work is a large stall. The materials removed from the old houses, the tables and chairs and benches that are broken or still usable, the fabrics of various patterns, colors and textures, pots and pans, as well as various clothes, children's toys, and various Chinese and Western medicines.
Song Dong's super-large contemporary art installation "Making the Best Use of Things"
In response to this exhibition, the art historian Wu Hong compiled the book "Making the Best Use of Things: Contemporary Art of ordinary people". In the book, Wu Hong says, "Is there a common 'objecthood' between these seemingly unrelated things?" In other words, although these objects belong to different categories and have different functions, are they integrated by some conceptual factor into an objectively existing whole? My answer to this question is a 'yes' without hesitation. My basis is that all these seemingly unrelated objects have the same kind of 'materiality' in the legal sense. According to this legal meaning, 'materiality' does not refer to the material form or visual representation of an object, but to facts of decisive significance to the problem or event involved. The Chinese expression ability of this passage is not smooth, but the views are still enlightening. It is also in the "materiality" aspect of "making the best use of things" that I juxtapose the two exhibitions of Yantian Qianchun's "Fluttering Soul" and Zhao Xiangyuan and Song Dong's "Making the Best Use of Things".
"Making the Best Use of Things: Contemporary Art of ordinary people", edited by Wu Hong
"Make the Most of Everything", a super-large installation, has appeared in a series of important exhibitions. 2005, Tokyo Art Project, Beijing, 2006, 6th Gwangju Biennale, 2007,Berlin", "Imagine Asia Again"; 2009, Museum of Modern Art, New York. Did Chiharu Shiota ever view this work? Inspired? I don't know. However, the original narrative resources of the two exhibitions have the consistency of internal rational paths. Of course, the two exhibitions have different themes of expression and different narrative techniques.
Chiharu Shiota, Beyond Memory, 2019, Wood, Paper; Exhibition Site in Bad Homburg, Berlin, Germany, Photo by Sunhi Mang VG Bild-Kunst in Bonn, Germany and Chiharu Shiota
From tradition to modernity, the inevitable rhythm is "trembling". Looking back at tradition from modern times, we are faced with Chen Ziang-style sighs. This huge "sigh", to put it bluntly, is "the trembling of the soul". So, is there a kind of "matter" that stretches in the "trembling" of the past and the present? Yantian Qianchun and Song Dong invariably returned to the "material nature". Their extravagant creations and display methods remind me of Han Dafu's laying methods: meticulous and magnificent.
Give the body and shine. Shiota Chiharu entered this method.