# Chiharu Shiota artist context and auction value notes

Canonical page: https://appraisily.com/artist/chiharu-shiota/
Profile generated: 2026-05-31T07:05:16.762Z
Quality: high confidence, strong sources

## Artist identity

- Nationality: Japanese
- Movements: Contemporary installation art, Performance art
- Common media: Thread and yarn installations, Found objects, Performance, Sculpture, Drawing

## About Chiharu Shiota

Chiharu Shiota (塩田千春, born 1972, Osaka) is a Japanese installation and performance artist who has lived and worked in Berlin since 1996. She studied at Kyoto Seika University, the Canberra School of Art, the Hochschule für bildende Künste Hamburg and Braunschweig, and the Universität der Künste Berlin, where she developed her practice under Marina Abramović. Shiota is best known for room-scale environments built from dense webs of black or red thread, often suspending everyday objects such as keys, letters, dresses, and shoes within labyrinthine networks. These installations explore themes of memory, displacement, human connection, and mortality, weaving personal narrative into architectural space. Her work has been exhibited at major institutions worldwide, including the Smithsonian, the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, the Red Brick Museum in Beijing, and KÖNIG Galerie, and she represented Japan at the 56th Venice Biennale in 2015. With 187 documented works in auction and appraisal contexts, Shiota is an internationally recognized figure in contemporary installation art.

## Common works and media

Collectors and appraisers may encounter Shiota's work in several forms: preparatory drawings and sketches related to large installations; limited-edition prints and works on paper; sculptural maquettes or models for room-scale projects; performance documentation in photograph or video format; and smaller mixed-media pieces incorporating thread, fabric, or found objects. Monumental thread installations themselves are occasionally acquired by museums or private institutions under commission agreements. The artist also produces artist books and collaborative publications tied to specific exhibitions.

## Market and appraisal context

Chiharu Shiota's primary market presence is through leading contemporary galleries and major museum commissions. Her large-scale site-specific installations are typically commissioned rather than auctioned, but preparatory drawings, prints, sculptural maquettes, and editioned works do appear on the secondary market. Key valuation factors include exhibition provenance, association with recognized galleries such as KÖNIG Galerie, institutional exhibition history, and the relationship between a smaller work and a documented major installation. Condition documentation is important for thread-based and mixed-media pieces, as materials can be fragile. Collectors should verify authenticity through gallery or studio records.

## Appraisily data basis

Appraisily artist pages combine artist identity research from museum, library authority, and official sources with auction records, auction-house context, sale dates, realized prices, and comparable lots when those records are available. For Chiharu Shiota, identity data is sourced from Wikidata, VIAF, the RKD Netherlands Institute for Art History, the Library of Congress authority file, and the artist's official website. Market context is supplemented by Invaluable auction records where available.

## Sources

- Wikidata: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2071137
- RKD Netherlands Institute for Art History: https://rkd.nl/en/explore/artists/234609
- VIAF (OCLC): https://viaf.org/viaf/57515879/
- Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiharu_Shiota
- Chiharu Shiota (official site): http://www.chiharu-shiota.com/
- Library of Congress: https://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n2004016339