FIGURE 5: Chiharu Shiota, The Key in the Hand, installation, 2015. (Different views)
For the 2015 Venice Art Biennale, contemporary Japanese artist Chiharu Shiota created an installation titled The Key in the Hand. It is constructed as a tightly woven ceiling maze of red yarn with 50,000 suspended keys. On the hall’s floor space is two worn boats that seemingly catch the web of interlaced keys as they fall heavily over them to form a tunnel-like partition in the mass of red yarn. The keys were collected from people and places all around the world. According to Shiota, the keys are familiar and very valuable things that protect important people and spaces in our lives – they also inspire us to open the door to unknown worlds.
With reference to the information above, and the visual sources (FIGURE 5), discuss the following in an essay:
- How would you define an installation?
- What, do you think, would be the effect of this installation on the viewer? Consider the mood, scale, colour and use of space.
- The use of materials and the contrasts between them.
- The idea of beauty in art.
- How the work explores the notion of memory by referring to the keys, yarn and boats.
MEMORANDUM
- How would you define an installation?
An installation is an artwork that uses space as an integral part of the work. The viewer can usually 'enter' the piece and become a part of it. It allows for a variety of media to be used, both two-dimensional/three-dimensional and traditional/contemporary e.g. digital, etc. It can also include smells, sounds, etc.
- What, do you think, would be the effect of this installation on the viewer? Consider the mood, scale, colour and use of space.
A huge cloud of red tightly interwoven yarnfills the room’s ceiling and walls. The red yarn weaves an immersive labyrinth of keys hanging from it to the two rustic boats at the center of the space. The web of threads turns the roof into a complex and elaborate labyrinth of materials, forming an undulating path for which viewers to traverse beneath. Shiota places the viewer at the heart of the installation. The viewer is surrounded by a womblike cloud of red which creates a warm, intimate feeling.
- The use of materials and the contrasts between them
In this installation Shiota forges a link between the keys, yarn, and two boats.She has made use of ready-mades with the collection of keys from all over the world. There is also a contrast between the hard rigid metal of the keys and the pliable, fragile yarn. Colour wise the red contrast with the metal colour of the keys and natural wood of the boats. There is also the contrast between organic (the wooden boats) and inorganic metal keys.
- The idea of beauty in art.
Shiota has used simple materials to create this delicate yet monumental installation. There is a poetic beauty in this work.
- How the work explores the notion of memory by referring to the keys, yarn and boats.
The idea of memory is expressed through the use of keys collected from the publicfrom across the world. The keys have been strung onto red yarn. The boats catch the net of interlaced metal and yarn as it passes over the site. The boats are like hands catching a rain of reminiscences which form our collective memory in a work which is at once spectacular and intimate, and carries a spiritual charge. Confronting fundamental human concerns like life and death, Shiota explores questions such as "What does it mean to be alive?" and "What is existence?" in this large-scale installations.In our daily lives, keys protect valuable things like our houses, assets, and personal safety, and we use them while embracing them in the warmth of our hands. Despite their seemingly simple utility, keys are intimate objects that we all carry to keep ourselves—and the things we love—safe. Invested with our deep trust and passedbetween hands over time, keys symbolicallybind us together.We can also entrust the keys, packed with memories, to others who we trust to look after the things that are important to us. Each key holds memories of the individual through their previous daily use, Theynow hangs amongst the many other memory-tied talismans above the heads of passing visitors.By crowd-sourcing these memories Shiota has created “a rain of memories pouring down from the ceiling” and being caught by two boats that symbolize hands. Familiar yet precious objects that guard our loved ones, our secrets and the important places in our lives, Chiharu Shiota tells us that keys are invitations‘to open the door to unknown worlds.’ In daily contact with human warmth, keys accumulate countless layers of memory. Shiota appealed to the public to donate the tens of thousands of keys needed for the project, each one repository of personal memories that will intertwine with visitor’s own reminiscences. The keysrepresent a collection of human feelings, while the yarn visualizes their immaterial connections across time and space.
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