"Stairway", from Chiharu Shiota's official website.
An exhibition by Japanese artist Chiharu Shiota that was scheduled to open September 12 will finally open on October 4 after a delay "due to last-minute city code concerns", writes the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. "Traces of Memory" will be on display at the Mattress Factory's new satellite gallery, ocated at 516 Sampsonia Way (map), a few houses down from the museum's main building and down the street from the City of Asylum. The museum's website summarizes the exhibit:
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 anxiety. Shiota explores the relationship between waking life and memories through hauntingly beautiful installations that incorporate everyday objects like shoes, pianos and hospital beds encased in webs of yarn. Stretched in multi-layers in a gallery space, Shiota weaves disorienting cocoons of black yarn that reflect the artist’s desire to ‘draw in the air’.It will run through May 31, 2014.
The site-specific installation of new works by Shiota will fill the eight rooms in the building at 516 Sampsonia Way—a 19th-century row home with a storied past—which is suited to the artist’s work. Its interior is cosmetically untouched; the raw condition of the building lends itself well to reflections on the past and the conjuring of memories.