CHIHARU SHIOTA
MEMORY OF BOOKS
54th Venice Biennale - Gervasuti Foundation
2 June - 10 September 2011
PRESS RELEASE
CHIHARU SHIOTA | MEMORY OF BOOKS
54th Venice Biennale - Gervasuti Foundation
2 June - 10 September 2011
Private View: 1 June, 2011 6-8 pm
Haunch of Venison is pleased to present Memory of Books at the 54th Venice Biennale, a new site-specific installation by Chiharu Shiota curated by James Putnam.
Shiota will create an evocative installation by suspending countless strands of black wool from the walls, floors and ceiling of the space. This giant web through which visitors must find their way, envelops the hundreds of books Shiota found stacked up in situ at the Foundation. It criss-crosses the space forming a visible network that connects a simple reading table and chair, piles of books and loose pages, together with the surrounding room. Shiota's work typically relates to memory and the interwoven threads are symbolic of human relationships with the place and found objects. It is as if the complex web of thread is transmitting the aura radiated by the books or the individuals that once read them.
Memory is essentially the retention of accumulated knowledge in this case symbolized by the books, the information they contain and the lives of their past readers. Memory of Books coincides with The Knowledge an exhibition also curated by James Putnam at the Gervasuti Foundation and the launch of Chiharu Shiota's new monograph with texts by Mami Kataoka and James Putnam published by Hatje Cantz, Berlin.
Chiharu Shiota, born in Osaka, in 1972, moved from Japan to Germany in 1996, to study under the performance artist Marina Abramovicć and the installation artist Rebecca Horn. Besides being a performance artist, Shiota is best known for creating room-filling, monumental yet delicate, poetic environments of black thread and found objects. Central to the artist's work are the themes of remembrance and oblivion, dreaming and sleeping, traces of the past and childhood, and dealing with anxieties. She has received numerous international awards and scholarships. In 2011 she participated in Hello Kitty! at the Japan Society, NY, curated by David Elliot, and she had solo exhibitions at La Maison Rouge, Paris, and at Detached - Tasmania Museum & Art Gallery, in cooperation with the Museum of New and Modern Art, Tasmania. Recent exhibitions include the Hayward Gallery, Haunch of Venison London, Moscow Biennale, Aichi Triennale, and the Setouchi International Arts Festival.
For information and images please contact
Bomi Odufunade | Tala Mahjoub:
T +44(0)20 7495 5050 M +44 (0)7810 757 302
E bomi@hofv.com | Tmahjoub@hofv.com
Private View: 1 June, 2011 6-8 pm
6 Burlington Gardens
London W1S 3ET
United Kingdom
T + 44 (0) 20 7495 5050
F + 44 (0) 20 7495 4050
london@haunchofvenison.com
www.haunchofvenison.com
HAUNCH OF VENISON LONDON
Editors' Notes
Haunch of Venison
Founded in 2002, Haunch of Venison works with some of the most important and exciting artists working today,presenting a broad and critically acclaimed programme of exhibitions at international gallery spaces in London and New York.
