Chiharu Shiota at the MAO in Turin: “The Soul Trembles,” a major immersive exhibition exploring memory, identity, and human fragility.
A monumental and intimate journey that transforms the MAO into a single, powerful site-specific installation
Chiharu Shiota at the MAO in Turin: “The Soul Trembles,” a major immersive exhibition exploring memory, identity, and human fragility.
Il MAO Museum of Oriental Art of Turin presents “Chiharu Shiota: The Soul Trembles”, one of the largest and most important monographic exhibitions dedicated to the Japanese artist. Curated by Mami Kataoka, director of the Mori Art Museum and creator of the original project, together with Davide Quadrio, director of the MAO, the exhibition arrives in national preview and, for the first time ever, in a Museum of Asian Art Italian, after an international tour in prestigious institutions such as the Grand Palais in Paris, Busan Museum of Art, Long Museum West Bund in Shanghai, Queensland Art Gallery in Brisbane and Shenzhen Art Museum.
An imposing and poetic project, which retraces Shiota's entire career through drawings, photographs, sculptures and some of its most famous and evocative environmental installations, famous throughout the world for their ability to envelop, suspend and transform space.
An immersive journey through threads, memories, and universal questions
The exhibition itinerary is configured as a large widespread installation, which expands from the temporary rooms to the museum's permanent galleries, creating a sensitive dialogue with the MAO's Asian collections. The works of Chiharu Shiota address issues such as the memory, identity, relationship with the other, time, assenza, life and death, exploring the intangible through visual textures of extraordinary emotional strength. The famous red or black threads, woven into large spatial structures, become a metaphor for bonds, fragility, and internal tensions. Among the most iconic works on display:
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Where Are We Going? (2017) – the reason for the boat, recurring in Shiota's poetics, evokes uncertain destinies and futures in the making.
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Uncertain Journey (2016) – skeletons of boats immersed in a network of red threads, symbol of the encounters and trajectories that dot every human journey.
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In Silence (2008) - a burnt piano and seats for a phantom audience wrapped in black threads: the silence after the destruction.
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Reflection of Space and Time (2018) – a dress and its reflected image that question presence in absence.
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Inside – Outside (2009) – a work on the border between inside and outside, private and public, East and West.
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Accumulation – Searching for the Destination (2021) – a monumental installation composed of hundreds of swinging suitcases, symbol of travel, memory, migration.
Curators' Voices: A Dialogue Between Existence and Asian Collections
"We have been led to reflect on life, death and the nature of existence.,” he says Mami Kataoka, recalling how the exhibition, inaugurated in 2019 in Tokyo, has spanned years marked by the pandemic and global conflicts. Davide Quadrio, the exhibition marks an important step in the MAO transformation: “From a museum of ancient art to a place of contemporary art, of care and slow time.” Shiota's installations, both monumental and intimate, transform the museum into a living, constantly evolving organism.
Public Programme, educational activities and bilingual catalogue
Like all the great productions of the MAO, also “The Soul Trembles” will be accompanied by:
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public musical and performance program
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screenings, meetings and conferences
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workshops for schools, families and adults
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accessible routes in International Signs, thanks to the collaboration with the Institute for the Deaf of Turin
The exhibition is also accompanied by a bilingual catalogue Italian-English published by Silvana Editorial, with texts by Kataoka and Quadrio and contributions from international scholars.
A new chapter: an unpublished work at the MUDEC Milano
An unpublished work by Chiharu Shiota, The Moment the Snow Melts, will be visible to the MUDEC by Milano as part of the project “The Sense of Snow”. A reflection on the precariousness of the snow as a metaphor for the ephemeral nature of human relations.
Biography
Chiharu Shiota (Osaka, 1972)
Internationally recognized artist, lives and works in Berlin. Winner of the Award for the Encouragement of the Arts of the Japanese Ministry of Culture (2008, 2024), has been the subject of exhibitions in leading institutions and has represented the Japan at the 56th Venice Biennale.
Mami Kataoka
Director of Mori Art Museum since 2020, also leading the National Center for Art Research and ICA KyotoShe was artistic director of international biennials and president of the ABOVE.
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