Press contact: Mandy Young, 412-231-3169, mandy@mattress.org
 
CHIHARU SHIOTA: TRACE OF MEMORY
Opening Reception: July 12, 2013, 7-9pm
Exhibition: July 13, 2013 - Summer 2014
 
The first exhibition presented post-renovation at 516 Sampsonia Way will be of a site-specific installation by Chiharu Shiota. Shiota’s work focuses on the body with relation to place and space. Incorporating her experience working with performance artist Marina Abramovic in Germany, and the influence of traditional Japanese Butoh dance, Shiota creates environments that blur the distinction between object and space, as well as self and environment. Shiota will fill the eight rooms in the museum’s new building with webs of black yarn to evoke a sense of nostalgia, simultaneously attracting viewers while confronting them with painful memories and difficult emotions.
 
Shiota was born in Osaka in 1972 and studied art at the Kyoto Seika University in Japan. She is the winner of several awards, including the 2002 Philip Morris K.K Art Award and a Distinguished Service Medal from Kyoto Seika University. Her powerful installations have been exhibited in Europe and in Japan, including, “Memory of Books,” in the 2011 Venice Biennale. Shiota’s work is held by major collections, including The National Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo and the Museum für Neue Kunst Freiburg. Shiota lives and works in Berlin.