Mona Hatoum
Mona Hatoum (; born 1952) is a British-Palestinian multimedia and installation artist who lives in London. Biography. Mona Hatoum was born in 1952 in Beirut, Lebanon, to Palestinian parents. Although born in Lebanon, Hatoum was ineligible for a Lebanese identity card and does not identify as Lebanese. As she grew up, her family did not support her desire to pursue art. She continued to draw throughout her childhood, though, illustrating her work from poetry and science classes. Hatoum studied graphic design at Beirut University College in Lebanon for two years and then began working at an advertising agency . Hatoum was displeased with the advertising work she produced. During a visit to London in 1975, the Lebanese Civil War broke out and Hatoum was forced into exile. She stayed in London, training at both the Byam Shaw School of Art and the Slade School of Fine Art (University College, London) between the years 1975 and 1981. In the years since, "she has traveled extensively and developed a dynamic art practice that explores human struggles related to political conflict, global inequity, and being an outsider." Artwork and themes. Hatoum explores a variety of different subject matter via different theoretical frameworks . Her work can be interpreted as a description of the body, as a commentary on politics, and on gender and difference as she explores the dangers and confines of the domestic world. Her work can also be interpreted through the concept of space as her sculpture and installation work depend on the viewer to inhabit the surrounding space to complete the effect. There are always multiple readings to her work. The physical responses that Hatoum desired to provoke psychological and emotional responses ensures unique and individual reactions from different viewers. Early work. Hatoum's early work consisted largely of performance  pieces that used a direct physical confrontation with an audience to make a political point. She used this technique as a means of making a direct statement using her own body; the performances often referenced her background and the political situation in Palestine. In her work, she addressed the vulnerability of the individual in relation to the violence inherent in institutional power structures. Her primary point of reference was the human body, sometimes using her own body. Section::::"Measures of Distance". Created in 1988, "Measures of Distance" illustrates Hatoum's early themes of family, displacement, and female sexuality. The video piece  itself is fifteen minutes long and consists of intimate, colored photographs of Hatoum's mother showering. Hatoum overlays the photographs with letters that her mother, living in Beirut during the civil war, wrote to Hatoum, living in London. Handwritten in Arabic, the letters make up the video's narration and themes, and speak to the difficulty of sending letters in a time of conflict. Hatoum reads the letters aloud in Arabic and English. The video roots itself in the brief family reunion that occurred in Beirut between Hatoum and her parents in 1981. While primarily about the mother–daughter relationship , in her mother's letters Hatoum's father is mentioned and thus the father–daughter relationship as well as the husband–wife relationship is examined in this video. The elements of the video—the letters, Hatoum's mother's wish to see her, and mentions of the war by Hatoum's mother—explore how the war in Palestine and the war in Lebanon displaced the identity and the relationships of Hatoum and her family. The video is neither a documentary nor meant to be journalistic. The video critiques stereotypes and remains optimistic, since the narration from the letters is largely  positive, except about the distance between the mother and the daughter. Hatoum attempts to recreate the moments when she reunited with her mother in Beirut and when she asked to photograph her in the shower. Instead of directly depicting the Israeli–Palestinian conflict or the Lebanese Civil War, Hatoum shows how the conflicts affected her family's relationships and her identity. Hatoum both distances and draws in Western audiences through her narration in English and Arabic. In this portrait of a Palestinian woman, Hatoum gives her mother a voice while subverting stereotypes about Arab women. The Tate Modern describes the  portrait in the following words: "It is through the daughter's art-making project that the mother is able to present herself freely, in a form which cements a bond of identity independent of colonial and patriarchal concerns." "Measures of Distance" is one of the few works done by Hatoum that speaks directly to her background. In other works, Hatoum prefers to be more abstract and to leave the work open ended. While not as abstract as many of her other works, the viewer is still forced to work through how to understand the formal elements of the video. They  are not easily given by Hatoum, as the narration is here. "The video transmits the 'paradoxical state of geographical distance and emotional closeness.'" "Measures of Distance" was screened at the London Film Festival, AFI National Video Festival, and the Montreal Women's Film and Video Festival. Section::::"Grater Divide". Made in 2002, "Grater Divide" transforms an everyday object, in this case a common kitchen grater, into a divider, alluding to political alienation, perhaps caused by Israeli-built walls in Palestinian territory. Section::::"Hot Spot III". "Hot Spot III", created in 2009, is a large installation piece of the globe tilted like the  Earth and about as tall as a person. The title connects to the theme of political unrest, imagining conflict in one geographical area upsetting the whole world. The globe is made of cage-like steel that glows luminescent red, as though the world is ablaze, flickering quickly, meant to create an energetic environment that mesmerizes the audience. The installation also invokes a feeling of danger with the hot red lighting outlining the continents. Hatoum challenges whether minimalist or surrealist forms can adequately address the world's issues. Later work. In the late 1980s, Hatoum abandoned performances as politically too direct  and instead turned her attention to installations and objects, taking up some of the earlier ideas from her student days at the Slade School of Art in London. From then on, she relied on the kind of interactivity that lets the spectator become involved in the aesthetic experience without making the artist as performer the focus of attention. Since the 1990s, her work has generally shifted from making statements to asking questions. Much more is required of the viewer as performances were replaced by sculptures and installations that required a level of mental and physical interactivity. Her practice has shifted  towards site specificity in, for instance, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, and Kunsthalle Hamburg. A notable piece exemplifying her turn from performance to physical objects is "Keffieh" (1993–1999), a scarf woven of human hair that juxtaposes ideas of femininity and religion. At the end of the 1980s, she began to focus on common domestic objects—including kitchen utensils and house furnishings. T42 (1993–98) is a pair of teacups fused together at the rim. The body. Many of Hatoum's early pieces situate the body as the locus of a network of concerns—political, feminist, and linguistic—thereby eliciting a highly  visceral response. One of her pieces, a 1994 video installation called "Corps etranger", showed color video images of an endoscopic probe of her body. Corps "etranger" was originally produced for Centre Georges Pompidou and features a partially enclosed, cylindrical structure that viewers are called to enter. The viewer stands on a circular plate of glass, and video close-up images of internal and external parts of the artist's body. The artist hails the viewer to "walk around" the inside of her body through the visual sequence taken on the endoscope and colonoscope, scanning and probing her digestive system. The  audio is a recording of a heartbeat and bodily movements. The artwork of Hatoum investigates the concept of the 'abjection' introduced by the cultural theorist, Julia Kristeva and the uncanny in her works using body hair. Politics. The political possibilities for the uncanny visual motif are relevant to discussions of Hatoum's work, as the disruption achieved at a psychological level can have broad implications involving power, politics, or individual concerns. The allusiveness attained by her work is not always referencing grand political events, or appealing to a generalized cultural consciousness, but instead to a seemingly unattainable threat that is  only possible to address on an individual scale. Hatoum has tied her works to other political movements, especially black struggle. In an interview with Michael Archer in 1997, Hatoum said: "At the beginning it was important to think about the black struggle as a total political struggle. There are common political forces and attitudes that discriminate against people. In the same way as feminism started off with this totalizing concept of 'sisterhood', and then we ended up with many feminisms, if you like. The black struggle became more diversified once the basic issues were established. And blackness here is not  to do with the colour of your skin but a political stance." Exhibitions. Since 1983, Mona Hatoum has been displaying both her installations and her video performance art pieces in exhibitions around the world. She has been featured in individual exhibitions as recently as 2018 at White Cube in Hong Kong. Some of her other solo exhibitions of note include: Centre Pompidou, Paris (1994), Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (1997), The New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York (1998), Castello di Rivoli, Turin (1999), Tate Britain, London (2000), Hamburger Kunsthalle, Kunstmuseum Bonn, Magasin 3, Stockholm (2004) and Museum of Contemporary  Art, Sydney (2005), Parasol Unit, London (2008), Darat Al Funun, Jordan (2008), Fondazione Querini Stampalia, Venice (2009), Beirut Art Center (2010), and the Menil Collection (2017). She has also participated in a number of recognized group exhibitions, including: The Turner Prize (1995), Venice Biennale (1995 and 2005), Biennale of Sydney (2006) and the Biennale of Montreal; Drone the automated image (2013). A solo exhibition entitled "Turbulence" is organized in 2014 by in Doha. Hatoum's work was featured in a solo exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston in 2015. In May 2016, Tate Modern held a "comprehensive exploration  into 35 years of Hatoum's work in Britain, from her early performance and video works to her sculpture and large-scale installation" The Menil Collection in Houston, Texas organized a solo exhibition titled "Mona Hatoum: Terra Infirma" that was on view from 12 October 2017 to 25 February 2018. This exhibition then traveled to the Pulitzer Arts Foundation and was on view from 6 April to 11 August 2018. In March 2018, Hatoum was shortlisted for the Hepworth Prize for Sculpture, alongside Michael Dean, Phillip Lai, Magali Reus and Cerith Wyn Evans. The work of the shortlisted artists was  displayed at the Hepworth Wakefield gallery from the end of October of that year. In January 2020, Hatoum was part of Artpace’s exhibit titled "Visibilities: Intrepid Women of Artpace". Also in 2020, she received the Julio González award, featuring in a solo exhibition at Institut Valencià d'Art Modern in 2021. Solo Exhibitions 2021 "Mona Hatoum", IVAM Institut Valenciá d'Art Modern, Valencia 2019 "Remains to be Seen", White Cube, London 2019 Galerie Chantal Crousel, Paris 2018 "Remains of the Day", White Cube, Hong Kong 2018 "Every wall a door", Riverrun, Istanbul 2017 "The 10th Hiroshima Art Prize", Hiroshima City Museum  of Contemporary Art 2017 "Terra Infirma", Menil Collection, Houston, Texas 2017 "Terra Infirma", Pulitzer Arts Foundation, St. Louis, Missouri, 2018 2017 "Displacements/Entortungen: Ayşe Erkmen & Mona Hatoum", Museum der bildenden Künste, Leipzig, Germany 2016 "Twelve Windows", Tate Modern, London, 2016 "Twelve Windows", Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki, 2016 2014 "Turbulence", Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha, Qatar 2014 "Twelve Windows", Alexander and Bonin, New York 2014 Galerie René Blouin, Montreal 2014 "Close Quarters", Museum of Fine Arts Ghent, Belgium 2014 Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo 2013 "Mappings", Centre d’art des Pénitents Noirs, Aubagne, France 2013 "A Body  of Work", Galleria Continua, San Gimignano, Italy 2013 Kunstmuseum St. Gallen, Switzerland 2013 "Reflection", Galerie Chantal Crousel, Paris 2012 "You Are Still Here", Arter, Istanbul 2012 "Projection", Joan Miró Prize, Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona 2012 "Shift", Galerie Max Hetzler, Berlin 2011 "Silver Lining", Hochschule der Künste, Bern, Switzerland 2011 "Bunker", White Cube, London 2011 "Bourj", Alexander and Bonin, New York 2011 Sammlung Goetz, Munich 2010 Galerie Chantal Crousel, Paris 2010 "Suspendu", MAC/VAL Musée d’art contemporain du Val–de–Marne, Vitry–sur–Seine, France 2010 "Witness", Beirut Art Center 2010 "Käthe – Kollwitz Prize 2010", Akademie der Künste, Berlin 2010 "Electrified , Kunsthal 44 Møen, Askeby, Sweden 2010 Le Grand Monde", Fundación Botín, Santander, Spain 2010 "Keeping It Real: Act 3", Current Disturbance, Whitechapel Gallery, London 2009 Alexander and Bonin, New York 2009 "Measures of Entanglement", Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing 2009 "Hanging Garden", Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna 2009 "Interior Landscape", Fondazione Querini Stampalia, Venice 2009 "Undercurrent (red)", Galleria Continua, San Gimignano, Italy 2009 "Natura Morta", Fondazione Merz, Turin, Italy 2009 "Mona Hatoum: Collected Works", Rennie Collection at Wing Sang, Vancouver 2008 Galerie Chantal Crousel, Paris 2008 "Undercurrents", XIII Biennale Donna, Palazzo Massari PAC, Ferrara, Italy 2008 "Unhomely", Galerie Max Hetzler, Berlin  2008 "Hanging Garden", DAAD Galerie, Berlin 2008 "Present Tense", Parasol Unit, London 2008 Darat al Funun – The Khalid Shoman Foundation, Amman, Jordan 2006 "Kairotic", Townhouse Gallery, Cairo 2006 Galerie Max Hetzler, Berlin 2006 Galleria Continua, San Gimignano, Italy 2006 "Hot Spot", White Cube, London 2005 "Over My Dead Body", Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Sydney 2005 "Mobile Home", Alexander and Bonin, New York 2005 Douglas F. Cooley Memorial Art Gallery, Reed College, Portland, Oregon 2004 Hamburger Kunsthalle, Germany; Kunstmuseum Bonn, Germany; Magasin III, Stockholm 2004 Galerie René Blouin, Montreal 2003 "Photo and Video Works", Uppsala Konstmuseum, Sweden 2003 "Artist’s  Choice: Mona Hatoum, Here Is Elsewhere", Museum of Modern Art, New York 2003 Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Oaxaca, 2003 Exconvento de Conkal, Yucatan, Mexico 2002 Laboratorio Arte Alameda, Mexico City 2002 "Grater Divide", White Cube, London 2002 Centro de Arte de Salamanca 2002 Centro Galego de Arte Contemporánea, Santiago de Compostela, Spain 2002 Alexander and Bonin, New York 2002 Galerie Nordenhake, Stockholm 2001 Sala Mendoza, Caracas 2000 "The Entire World as a Foreign Land", Tate Britain, London 2000 "Images from Elsewhere", fig–1, London 2000 SITE Santa Fe, New Mexico; as Domestic Disturbance, Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, North Adams , 2001 1999 "The Box", Turin, Italy 1999 "Castello di Rivoli", Turin, Italy 1999 Artpace, San Antonio, Texas 1999 Le Creux de l’enfer – Centre d’art contemporain, Thiers, France; Le Collège, FRAC 1999 Fonds régional d’art contemporain Champagne–Ardenne, Reims, France, 2000; 1999 Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst Antwerpen, Antwerp, Belgium, 2000 1999 Alexander and Bonin, New York 1998 Kunsthalle Basel 1998 "Measures of Distance", Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati, Ohio 1998 "Over My Dead Body", Der Standard, Museum in Progress, Vienna 1998 Museum of Modern Art, Oxford, UK 1998 Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh 1997 Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago 1997  New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York 1997 Galerie René Blouin, Montreal 1996 The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia 1996 Gallery Anadiel, Jerusalem 1996 "Current Disturbance", Capp Street Project, San Francisco 1996 "Quarters", Viafarini, Milan 1996 De Appel, Amsterdam 1995 "Socle du Monde", White Cube, London 1995 "Short Space", Galerie Chantal Crousel, Paris 1995 British School at Rome 1994 "Mona Hatoum", Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris. 1994 Galerie René Blouin, Montreal 1994 Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris 1994 CRG Gallery, New York 1993 "Mona Hatoum", Arnolfini, Bristol. 1993 "Recent Work", Arnolfini, Bristol, UK 1993 South London Gallery (with Andrea Fisher), London 1993  Socle du monde, Galerie Chantal Crousel, Paris 1993 "Positionings/Transpositions (with Barbara Steinman)", Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Canada 1992 Mario Flecha Gallery, London 1992 "Dissected Space: New Installations" 1990–1992, Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff. 1992 "Dissected Space", Chapter, Cardiff, UK 1989 "Mind the Gap", A Space, Toronto, Canada (performance) 1989 "The Light at the End", The Showroom, London; Oboro, Montreal 1989 Galerie Obscure, Quebec 1989 Forest City Gallery, London, Canada 1986 Nine One One Contemporary Arts Center, Seattle, Washington 1985 "Between the Lines", The Orchard Gallery, Derry, UK (performance) 1985 "Variation on Discord and Divisions", Western Front, Vancouver; Articule, Montreal  (performance) 1984 "Variation on Discord and Divisions", ABC No Rio, New York (performance) 1984 "Variation on Discord and Divisions", AKA Gallery, Saskatoon, Canada (performance) 1984 "The Negotiating Table", Franklin Furnace, New York (performance) 1983 "The Negotiating Table", SAW Gallery, Ottawa, Canada (performance) 1983 "The Negotiating Table", Niagara Artists Centre, St Catharines (performance) 1983 "The Negotiating Table", Western Front, Vancouver (performance)