An exhibition of new work by Mona Hatoum will go on view at
Tate Britain in the Duveen Galleries on 24 March 2000. This
will be her first major solo show in London and is the first in
a new series of sculpture displays by British artists in the
Duveen Galleries. The series highlights Tate Britain's strong
commitment to contemporary art and artists.
Responding to the architecture of the galleries, Hatoum has
created large scale works which reflect her current interest in
everyday objects. These sculptures, focusing on household
objects, emphasise and yet undermine their character as
aids to domestic comfort and efficiency. Mouli-Julienne (x 21)
is based on the French kitchen device for slicing or
shredding vegetables, but is dramatically enlarged. The
threatening scale of this piece reinforces the intensity of the
object, where the shredding drum is intentionally large
enough to accommodate a human body. The artist's
transformation of this and other domestic tools renders them
beautiful, yet malevolent. Another new work uses domestic
furniture and kitchen implements but the additional element
of live electrical currents running through the objects makes
them sinister.
The confrontational themes that Hatoum focuses on, such as
violence and oppression, often make powerful reference to
the human body, its vulnerability and resilience. Through the
juxtaposition of opposites such as beauty and horror,
Hatoum aims to engage the viewer in conflicting emotions of
desire and revulsion, fear and fascination.
Mona Hatoum was born a British citizen, to Palestinian
parents, in Beirut in 1952. She settled in London in 1975 after
civil war broke out in Lebanon while she was on a visit to
Britain. After studying at the Byam Shaw and Slade Schools
of art, she first became known in the early 1980s for a series
of performance and video pieces which focused with great
intensity on the body. Towards the end of that decade her
work shifted towards installation and sculpture including the
video installation Corps étranger 1994 an endoscopic
journey through the artist's body.
Hatoum's work has been exhibited widely. In 1998 a solo
exhibition, initiated by The Museum of Contemporary Art,
Chicago toured to The New Museum, New York, MoMA,
Oxford, and the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art,
Edinburgh. Other solo exhibitions include Centre Georges
Pompidou, Paris (1994) and Castello di Rivoli, Turin (1999).
Hatoum's work was included in Rites of Passage, Tate
Gallery, London (1995) and in the same year she was
shortlisted for the Turner Prize.
An illustrated catalogue will be available with essays by
cultural critic Edward Said and Sheena Wagstaff, Head of
Exhibitions and Display, Tate Britain (32pp, £12.99). The
exhibition is curated by Sheena Wagstaff with Clarrie Wallis,
Programme Curator, Tate Britain.
Tate Gallery
London,
UK