Japan Society Gallery presents the first New York solo museum exhibition of contemporary artist Chiharu Shiota (b. 1972). Commemorating the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II, Chiharu Shiota: Two Home Countries centers on a newly commissioned, site-specific installation that explores wartime experiences and memories. Placing the original installation in dialogue with other works from Shiota’s oeuvre, the exhibition creates parallels between the humanitarian tragedy of war and the artist’s personal struggles, including confronting her mortality and her bicultural identity living between two home countries. By drawing connections between collective and personal experience and memory, the exhibition contemplates universal issues such as history, humanity, loss, time, space, the body, and national identity.

The exhibition also documents the conceptualization and creative process behind Shiota’s stage set designed for Japan Society’s theater commission KINKAKUJI (Temple of the Golden Pavilion), which will premiere on the opening night of the exhibition. Based on the novel by legendary Japanese author Yukio Mishima (1925–1970), the performance celebrates the centennial year of his birth. This new work brings Shiota’s innovative and deeply intimate stage design to American audiences for the first time.