Chiharu Shiota’s The Soul Trembles arrives at The Grand Palais with all the makings of a compelling retrospective—monumental installations, intricate webs of thread, and meditations on memory, absence, and the fragility of human connection. And yet, while moments of intrigue arise, the exhibition as a whole never quite coheres into an experience that truly resonates.
There is no denying Shiota’s capacity to conjure a sense of the ephemeral. Her signature networks of entangled thread are present in force, creating dense environments that one could, in theory, lose oneself in. But rather than a reflective look at her oeuvre or a carefully constructed journey through her artistic evolution, the exhibition feels more like an assemblage of works than a fully curated statement. Individual installations stand on their own, but collectively, they fail to build towards something more profound.
Where the show does succeed is in its moments of stillness—the quieter, more elusive works, particularly those absent from the space yet represented in photography. These images of past installations hint at a depth and emotion that the physical exhibition never quite achieves. The suggestion of something lost or unreachable is, ironically, more evocative than the installations themselves. It’s a curious effect: the most compelling works are the ones we can only imagine.
Of course, there are flashes of brilliance. A suspended boat adrift in a sea of crimson threads conjures a haunting, if familiar, sense of displacement. Stacked windows hint toward the presence of the absent viewer. But the show lacks a clear arc, a reason to invest beyond the immediate visual impact of Shiota’s intricate compositions. It is fine—certainly not without merit—but fine is perhaps not enough for a title as grand as The Soul Trembles.
For all its ambition, this exhibition does not make the soul tremble. It flickers, it hesitates, but ultimately, it remains still.
The Meandering Musings of a Mindless Man…
