Mona Hatoum (1952) was born in Beirut, to a Palestinian family. She attended Beirut University College from 1970 to 1972. She came to Britain as a student in the mid-1970s, settling in London in 1975 when civil war in the Lebanon made her return home impossible. She studied at the Byam Shaw School of Art from 1975 to 1979 and at the Slade School of Art from 1979 to 1981. Throughout the 1980s she held a number of artist's residencies in Britain, Canada and the United States. Hatoum has occupied part-time teaching positions in London, Maastricht, and Cardiff, where she was Senior Fellow at Cardiff Institute of Higher Education from 1989 to 1992, and in the mid-1990s she taught at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris.
Hatoum's pieces are concerned with confrontational themes such as violence, oppression and voyeurism, often in reference to the human body. Conflict arises from the juxtaposition of opposites such as beauty and horror, desire and revulsion. Until 1988 Hatoum worked mainly with video and performance. Since 1989 she has concentrated on making installations, the first group of which were exhibited in 1992 at the Chapter Gallery, Cardiff. She has created a number of works using metal grids which allude to physical violence and imprisonment, notably Light Sentence (1992). She has also explored these themes in a number of smaller sculptures based on items of furniture, such as Incommunicado (1993). She has had solo exhibitions at the Chapter Gallery, Cardiff (1992), the Arnolfini, Bristol (1993) and the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris (1994), as well as at a number of venues across Canada. In 1995 she was shortlisted for the Turner Prize at the Tate Gallery.
Hatoum is part of a generation of artists who started to work more commonly across different media in order to best present their intended message. As such, her body of work is usefully considered alongside the likes of Louise Bourgeois, Eva Hesse, Ana Mendieta, and Rachel Whiteread, all of who exhibit an understated, and yet very powerful, understanding of the female body and the role that it plays within society. There is a sense in work by these artists that it is by looking to the stereotypical realms of the female, for example to the home, and to a domestic setting, where complex global issues may be reduced to a manageable size and as result better understood. Coming from a lineage of powerful matriarchal art figures, Hatoum's work provides invaluable reference and inspiration for the next and new generation of female artists.
According to her own personal story, her exile, and her direct experience of international conflict, the work of Hatoum is also influential for artists who explore political themes more directly. Indeed, her work has been an inspiration for Bob and Roberta Smith, Yannis Behrakis, and even the infamous Street Artist, Banksy. Born of the same generation, Ai Weiwei too reflects on his experience of conflict, exile, and of corrupt political agendas. Both Hatoum and Ai inform the public that political art continues to play a crucial role in society and that messages gleaned from art works do genuinely have the power to resolve conflict and thus move humanity forward.
© 2020. All content on this blog is protected by international copyright laws All images are copyrighted © by Mona Hatoum or assignee. Apart from fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review as permitted under the Copyright Act, the use of any image from this site is prohibited unless prior written permission is obtained. All images used for illustrative purposes only
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| Ms, Mona Hatoum |
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| Over My Dead Body 1988-2002 |
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| T42 1993-98 |
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| Untitled (wheelchair) 1998 |
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| Sprague Chairs (Down tools) 2001 |
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| Grater Divide 2002 |
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| Incommunicado 2003 |
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| Medal of Dishonour 2008 |
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| Static II 2008 |
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| 3D Cities 2008-10 |
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| Hot Spot III 2009 |
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| Puzzled 2009 |
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| Untitled (cut-out 11) 2009 |
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| Worry beads 2009 |
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| Untitled (rack) 2011 |
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| Untitled (Stick) 2011 |
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| Cappello per due II 2013 |
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| Hair necklace (wood) 2013 |
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| No way IV 2013 |
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| Projection (velvet) 2013 |
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| Cells 2014 |
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| Drowning Sorrows (Cachaça) 2014 |
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| Stool I 2014 |
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| Crate I 2016 |
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| Remains of the day 2016-18 |
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| Remains chair 2017 |
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| Terra Infirma 2018 |
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| Untitled (display case table) II 2018 |
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| A Pile of Bricks 2019 |
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| Inside Out 2019 |
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| Remains (bottle carrier) 2019 |
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| Remains (cabinet) 2019 |
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| Remains to be Seen 2019 |
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