Chiharu Shiota: wooly art on a silken thread

Over the last few years, new galleries have been opening so fast that we can hardly keep up with them. In particular, our neighbours to the south keep flocking to this chaotic city in ever greater numbers. The well-known Paris gallery Daniel Templon, for example, recently opened a branch in Brussels. Their new gallery is based in a spic and span modern building in the Louizalaan/avenue Louise district. Templon describes his decision as mainly a matter of chance: “I was looking for a new space in Paris. I couldn’t find a good space in the centre and people don’t go to the banlieues. When a French collector bought a building here, he put a proposition to me. I thought about it for a little while and then I jumped at it.” Like a lot of French people, Templon is enthusiastic about the Belgian capital. “Brussels is very dynamic in the domain of contemporary art! It’s not far from Paris, people here speak French too and the culture is not that different from ours. I represent a lot of artists who didn’t yet have a gallery in Brussels.” One of those is the Japanese artist Chiharu Shiota, who is now having her first solo show in Belgium, which contains both autonomous works and two site-specific installations. In the largest room you can see a garden house that is overgrown with black woollen threads that stretch from the ceiling to the floor.

In another room, a broken mirror hangs in what seems to be a large spider’s web. The shattered splinters are caught up in the web. But it is all rather decorative and stolid. A little further on, a toy aeroplane hangs in a stylised house; elsewhere, baby clothes and a few dolls. All overrun with wool. The repression of childhood memories is clearly the thread running through these works. But the gimmick soon becomes predictable and tedious.

The artist doesn’t manage to keep on getting our attention. Her drawings, in which the thread is a continuation of the pencil line, can’t turn the tide either. Not, perhaps, the most inspiring opening exhibition for a gallery that, it should be noted, represents a number of fascinating artists, including Jonathan Meese, Gregory Crewdson, and Ed Ruscha.

Chiharu Shiota > 2/11, di/ma/ Tu > za/sa/Sa 11 > 18.00, gratis/gratuit/free, Galerie Daniel Templon, rue Veydstraat 13A, Sint-Gillis/Saint-Gilles, 02-537.13.17, www.danieltemplon.com