Chiharu Shiota - 20th Century & Contemporary Art Day Sale Hong Kong Friday, October 6, 2023 | Phillips

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  • Widely renowned for her immersive and larger-than-life installations, Chiharu Shiota’s artistic practice is deeply rooted from her own personal narratives – weaving together recollections of her memories, dreams and anxieties into otherworldly and mesmerising dimensions. Probing notions of texture and tactility, the artist first began experimenting with thread in 1999 in her work Dialogue from DNA. Since then, it has materialised as her signature medium, further becoming synonymous with Shiota and her modus operandi.

     

    Forming a geometrical constellation of interminable thread multiplying and overlapping across a single canvas, the intricate structures in Endless Line embody a web of neural networks, and synapses firing and pulsating in all directions. This visual display alludes to the complexity of human emotions and enhances Shiota’s exploration of consciousness. When viewed in the flesh, the present work encourages observers to contemplate how it is our mind that spontaneously generates these pure and suggestive interweaving of individual and universal memories. As a result, the work brings forth the concept of infinitude – inscribing the past, present, and future in an impalpable and limitless manner in hopes that these thoughts will persist over the course of time.

     

    Just as memory and absence both coexist as abiding themes within Shiota’s oeuvre, the use of red threads remains commonly present due to its symbolic and visual implications. To the artist, red connotates to ‘the red thread of fate’ – an East Asian belief that is thought to bind individuals together. It can also be understood as a symbolisation of the human body, in particular it’s complex network of blood vessels that act as a metaphor for interconnectedness. Juxtaposed evenly against a blank white canvas, the threads create a stark contrast presenting Endless Line as one of Shiota’s most striking and arresting canvas compositions to appear at auction.

     

    Born in 1972 in Osaka and currently working in Berlin, Shiota studied painting at Kyoto Seika University before continuing her artistic education at the University of Fine Arts of Hamburg and the Berlin University of the Arts. Her stunning creations have been widely exhibited and she has enjoyed numerous international installations and solo shows, most notably her show at the Long Museum in Shanghai (2021), and the 2019 retrospective, The Soul Trembles, at the Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, which also travelled to the Mori Art Museum, Tokyo; the Busan Museum of Art; the Gallery of Modern Art in Australia; and the Museum MACAN, Indonesia. The artist is represented by Gallery Templon, König Gallery, and Mimmo Scognamiglio Artecontemporanea.

    • Provenance

      Kenji Taki Gallery, Nagoya
      Acquired from the above by the present owner

139

Endless Line

signed with the artist's initials and dated 'CS. 2017' on the overlap
thread on canvas
140.4 x 80.3 cm. (55 1/4 x 31 5/8 in.)
Executed in 2017.

Full Cataloguing

Estimate
HK$600,000 - 800,000 
€72,700-96,900
$76,900-103,000

Sold for HK$762,000

Contact Specialist

Anastasia Salnikoff
Head of Day Sale, Associate Specialist
+852 2318 2014
anastasiasalnikoff@phillips.com

20th Century & Contemporary Art Day Sale

Hong Kong Auction 7 October 2023