Mona Hatoum: Parasol Unit (London), daadgalerie (Berlin), Galerie Max Hetzler Temporary (Berlin) and Darat Al Funun (Amman)

Reem Fekri

Mona HatoumLast year Mona Hatoum had four major shows in London, Amman, and Berlin. Like many artists from the Middle East, Hatoum’s history heavily influences her work. Her past as an exile is familiar –born in Beirut 1952  (to Palestinian parents who fled Palestine in 1948 because of Israeli tension), Hatoum became stranded in London when the civil war broke out in Lebanon in 1975. She studied at Byam Shaw and Slade. Hatoum shows real conflict existing in the world whilst simultaneously lets her own personal narrative become intrinsic in the work.

Hatoum’s show at Parasol Unit in London last Autumn (it has been eight years since her last solo show in the country) could be viewed as a mini-retrospective, showing sculptures and installations that have been made over the past twelve years. One of the most noticeable pieces was Nature Morte Aux Grenades (2008), which consisted of a variety of glass, pastel colored shapes that resemble hand grenades that are placed on a steel trolley. The multiple colors and arrangement of these objects mirror decorative ornaments that one might find on a mantelpiece, which may suggest the futility and uselessness of war. These beautiful hand grenades present instruments of death and mutilation and yet, are aesthetically alluring.

Undercurrent (2004) is an eerie floor installation consisting of thick electrical cables, which are woven to resemble a carpet – which are then fringed with into a radius of light bulbs. These bleak lights emit a monotonous yet hypnotic pulse and stirs up a certain anxiety in its audience. Hatoum regards the dimming and lightening of these bulbs as ‘slow breathing.’

Mobile Home II (2006) are moving washing lines, between two street barriers, that held prosaic and everyday household objects, such as toy trucks, chairs and suitcases. The phantasmal impression the piece leaves you with is thinking of displacement, and most probably refers back to Hatoum’s exile to London from Lebanon during the civil war. The movement of these familiar objects result in a feeling of insecurity.

Hanging Garden (2008) at daadgalerie in Berlin was a single sculptural installation consisting of 100 sacks with what appears to be sprouting grass, piled up to head level and approximately 10 meters long. The sacks were filled with seeds that continue sprouting throughout the duration of the show. Even though the installation resembles a beautified version of sandbag barricades used during war as shelter for soldiers, the title of the piece suggests an oriental or Babylonian extravagence, and again, Hatoum delicately addresses antonymic issues of conflict and tranquility.

Homely, at Galerie Max Hetzler, shows a variety of everyday household objects that have been transformed into unfamiliar and uncomfortable objects, some of them appeared later in the Parasol Unit show. For example, Paravent (2008) is an enlarged fold-out cheese grater, that also works as a room divider or a screen. Chilling and fearful, the piece mirrors a torture device Afghan (red and black) (2008) is a traditional carpet that appears as though it is in the process of disintegration – through being eaten by moths. Upon close inspection it is evident that these moth eaten patches represent a map of the world.

Although some Western critics have viewed her work as being didactic, her major shows last year could not prove less so. Hatoum’s work delicately addresses important issues in the Middle East, such as the Israeli - Palestinian conflict, as well as touching on broader issues such as gender, displacement and insecurity.

In a moving and emotional essay written by Edward Said about the artist, Hatoum’s work is described as hard to bear, which mirrors a refugee’s world that which is full of ‘grotesque structures’ that address excess as well as paucity, yet despite viewing Hatoum’s work he argues it is important to see art that travesties the idea of a single homeland. He argues that “…better disparity and dislocation than reconciliation under duress of subject and object; better a lucid exile than sloppy, sentimental homecomings; better the logic of dissociation than an assembly of compliant dunces…”

Although Said was adamant that Hatoum expressed the Palestinian condition more strongly than anyone else, in an interview with the BBC recently, Hatoum revealed that this was not the case. She argued that people interpret her work depending on their own experiences – making Said’s experiences of exile and displacement is that of the Palestinians, in turn, making him read into specifically the Palestinian issue. Hatoum asserts that rather being specifically related to the Palestinian people is it related to those who are exiled, displaced or suffer a kind of cultural or political oppression of any kind.

Whether Hatoum’s work speaks specifically about the plight of the Palestinian people and the worsening situation or not, her work is thought provoking and powerful - it can only hope to open doors towards artists, writers, curators from the Diaspora and beyond with similar experiences to Hatoum.

Image courtesy of Artist
© Mona Hatoum, Keffieh, Human Hair on Cotton, 1993-1999

 

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