Mona Hatoum
Born – Beirut, Lebanon 1952
Mona Hatoum was forced by war to leave her native Beirut in 1975. Since then she has lived and worked in Britain extending her practise through various disciplines, installation, performance, video and sculpture. Her work has a political edge and discusses the physical, cultural and ethical boundaries which she has challenged or crossed. She often uses herself “as a site of metaphor or allegory for social constraints” engaging in ritualistic performances, that are physically demanding and often futile. Film footage of the interior of her own body forms the basis of a controversial manifestation of these preoccupations. Since 1989 Hatoum has concentrated on making installations and sculptures that implicate the viewer. In the absence of human presence, a sense of foreboding, torture and imprisonment pervades pieces such as Light Sentence. This minimalist construction comprises the wire skeleton of an institutional locker-room and a bare light bulb that mechanically patrols the length of the cage. The travelling light source throws sinister shadows of a perpetually changing grid that engulfs the spectator, reinforcing feelings of entrapment.
Masterpieces:
- Corps Etranger
- Incommunicado
Text: The A-Z of Art, Nicola Hodge and Libby Anson.
Books About mona hatoum
Mona Hatoum
Ingvild Goetz
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Mona Hatoum: Domestic Disturbance
Mona Hatoum
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Mona Hatoum: Unhomely
Kirsty Bell
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