Mona Hatoum

Synopsis

Mona Hatoum (born 1952) has established herself as a truly transnational artist: born in Beirut, and working in Berlin and London, her multimedia work explores the dangers inherent to the borderlines between nation and body. This multi-authored and richly illustrated publication reveals all of the different facets of the artist's career, from her overtly political performances of the 1980s to her later installations, photographs, sculptures and videos that examine the human body as a metaphor for oppression in a broader sense. Hatoum's unusual blend of Surrealism and Minimalism both seduces and repels: her endoscopic videos of her organs, blood-red lights, the crackling electricity of wired furniture and glowing globes, a variety of cages and the murderous possibilities of kitchen utensils present us with an alienating intimacy that questions our relationship to our bodies and to the world.