Mona Hatoum ( ar, منى حاطوم; born 1952) is a British-Palestinian

multimedia Multimedia is a form of communication that uses a combination of different content forms such as text, audio, images, animations, or video into a single interactive presentation, in contrast to tradit ...

and

installation art Installation art is an artistic genre of three-dimensional works that are often site-specific and designed to transform the perception of a space. Generally, the term is applied to interior spaces, whereas exterior interventions are often called ...

ist who lives in London.

Biography

Mona Hatoum was born in 1952 in

Beirut Beirut, french: Beyrouth is the capital and largest city of Lebanon. , Greater Beirut has a population of 2.5 million, which makes it the third-largest city in the Levant region. The city is situated on a peninsula at the midpoint o ...

Lebanon Lebanon ( , ar, لُبْنَان, translit=lubnān, ), officially the Republic of Lebanon () or the Lebanese Republic, is a country in Western Asia. It is located between Syria to the north and east and Israel to the south, while Cyprus lie ...

, 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 The Lebanese Civil War ( ar, الحرب الأهلية اللبنانية, translit=Al-Ḥarb al-Ahliyyah al-Libnāniyyah) was a multifaceted armed conflict that took place from 1975 to 1990. It resulted in an estimated 120,000 fatalities a ...

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 The UCL Slade School of Fine Art (informally The Slade) is the art school of University College London (UCL) and is based in London, England. It has been ranked as the UK's top art and design educational institution. The school is organised a ...

( 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.

''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 The Israeli–Palestinian conflict is one of the world's most enduring conflicts, beginning in the mid-20th century. Various attempts have been made to resolve the conflict as part of the Israeli–Palestinian peace process, alongside other ef ...

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 Tate Modern is an art gallery located in London. It houses the United Kingdom's national collection of international modern and contemporary art, and forms part of the Tate group together with Tate Britain, Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives. It ...

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 The BFI London Film Festival is an annual film festival founded in 1957 and held in the United Kingdom, running for two weeks in October with co-operation from the British Film Institute. It screens more than 300 films, documentaries and shor ...

, AFI National Video Festival, and the Montreal Women's Film and Video Festival.

''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.

''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 The UCL Slade School of Fine Art (informally The Slade) is the art school of University College London (UCL) and is based in London, England. It has been ranked as the UK's top art and design educational institution. The school is organised as ...

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 An endoscopy is a procedure used in medicine to look inside the body. The endoscopy procedure uses an endoscope to examine the interior of a hollow organ or cavity of the body. Unlike many other medical imaging techniques, endoscopes are inse ...

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 Julia Kristeva (; born Yuliya Stoyanova Krasteva, bg, Юлия Стоянова Кръстева; on 24 June 1941) is a Bulgarian-French philosopher, literary critic, semiotician, psychoanalyst, feminist, and, most recently, novelist, who ha ...

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 White Cube is a contemporary art gallery founded by Jay Jopling in London in 1993. The gallery has two branches in London: White Cube Mason's Yard in central London and White Cube Bermondsey in South East London; White Cube Hong Kong, in Centr ...

in Hong Kong. Some of her other solo exhibitions of note include:

Centre Pompidou The Centre Pompidou (), more fully the Centre national d'art et de culture Georges-Pompidou ( en, National Georges Pompidou Centre of Art and Culture), also known as the Pompidou Centre in English, is a complex building in the Beaubourg area of ...

, Paris (1994), Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (1997),

The New Museum of Contemporary Art The New Museum of Contemporary Art, founded in 1977 by Marcia Tucker, is a museum in New York City at 235 Bowery, on Manhattan's Lower East Side. History The museum originally opened in a space in the Graduate Center of the then-named New Scho ...

, New York (1998), Castello di Rivoli, Turin (1999),

Tate Britain Tate Britain, known from 1897 to 1932 as the National Gallery of British Art and from 1932 to 2000 as the Tate Gallery, is an art museum on Millbank in the City of Westminster in London, England. It is part of the Tate network of galleries in ...

, 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 The Venice Biennale (; it, La Biennale di Venezia) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy by the Biennale Foundation. The biennale has been organised every year since 1895, which makes it the oldest of ...

(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 Mathaf Arab Museum of Modern Art in Doha. Hatoum's work was featured in a solo exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston in 2015. In May 2016,

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 The Institut Valencià d'Art Modern (; es, link=no, Instituto Valenciano de Arte Moderno; English: "Valencian Institute of Modern Art"), also known by the acronym IVAM, was the first center of modern art created in Spain, opening in 1989 in the ...

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)

Awards

* 2008 – Rolf Schock Prize in Visual Arts * 2011 –

Joan Miró Joan Miró i Ferrà ( , , ; 20 April 1893 – 25 December 1983) was a Catalan painter, sculptor and ceramicist born in Barcelona. A museum dedicated to his work, the Fundació Joan Miró, was established in his native city of Barcelona ...

Prize, Fundació Joan Miró * 2017 – 10th Hiroshima Art Prize, Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, Hiroshima * 2018 – Whitechapel Gallery Art Icon * 2019 – Praemium Imperiale for the sculpture category, in recognition of her lifetime achievement in the medium. * 2021 – Julio González Price 2020

References

External links

Mona Hatoum at Whitecube.com

Mona Hatoum at for-site.org

Mona Hatoum Artist CV at Whitecube.com
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Hatoum, Mona Palestinian video artists Feminist artists Lebanese artists Living people 1952 births Artists from Beirut Alumni of the Slade School of Fine Art Alumni of the Byam Shaw School of Art Members of the Academy of Arts, Berlin Lebanese people of Palestinian descent Palestinian women artists Palestinian contemporary artists Lebanese women artists 20th-century women artists