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Mona Hatoum; Here Is Elsewhere
by Nima
Behnoud
at MoMA from November 7, 2003–February 2, 2004
There are many female artists who share an Islamic background and were
born in an Islamic land. Some have moved to different countries
and experienced Western art and culture and others have remained in their
homelands. Both types of artists have one thing in common in their art
- the influence of their homelands - Islamic countries, rules, restrictions,
civil conflict and social issues. These factors are essentials in their
art.
Mona Hatoum is among them. She was born in Beirut in 1952, although her
parents were from Palestine. At the age of 23, Mona went to London for
a visit, however, due to the on-sought of the civil war in Lebanon, she
soon found herself stranded in London, where she has lived for most of
her life. Like many exiles, removed from their homeland, she experienced
fear and disorder which, later in life, deeply impacted her art. She was
influenced by contemporary Western art and its feminism agenda. From the
early eighties, she has produced a wide spectrum of art works ranging
from performance art to video installations. She made a video piece about
her encounter with her mother in Beirut in 1988 called: "Measures
of Distance".
The Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago was the first museum to show
Mona Hatoum's work in the US in 1997. Lebanese exile racial and gender
issues were the main themes of her work. Although she insists that her
viewers follow their own instinctual reactions, still her work possess
a personal and political side that directly comes from her background
enabling them to see her perspective. Hatoum's recent exhibitions at 2002
intimately dealt with her ideas concerning the female sphere. Many art
critics believe her dark depictions of domesticity relate directly to
her Palestinian and Lebanese identities and her condition in exile. Her
powerful and descriptive work is very successful in first portraying an
artist in exile and second gaining an enormous emotional reaction from
the audience.
In 1989 MoMA initiated a program called “Artist’s Choice”
which was mainly the idea of the late Kirk Varnedoe, former Chief Curator
of the Department of Painting and Sculpture. The program invites famous
contemporary artists to organize their own selection of work and curate
an exhibition. Now from November 7, 2003 to February 2, 2004 Mona Hatoum
is the sixth artist to participate in the Artist’s Choice series.
Since Hatoum is a conceptual artist and her main subject matters evolve
around the idea of exile and instability of birthplace her selected art
works are by artists such as Cindy Sherman, Robert Gober, Felix Gonzalez-Torres,
and Francis Alÿs.
She has named this exhibition “Here Is Elsewhere”. Fereshteh
Daftari is also her co-curator and in an interview with Mona Hatoum she
asks her about the connection between the work selected by her and her
own art works. She explains:
“I chose to look at work in the collection from the seventies to
the present, not only because since 1975 I found myself living in London,
and contemporary Western art became my context, but also because I think
it was a very interesting period. Feminism has had a tremendous impact
on the art world since the beginning of the seventies. I feel that examining
power relationships along the gender divide also paved the way to questioning
other power structures along the lines of race, class, and cultural difference.”
The title of this collection “Here is elsewhere” is also another
highlight on the fact of being on exile and away from home but also accepting
here as the “elsewhere”. The “elsewhere” from
where an Artist can freely express, speak and shout his or her own ideas.
Home for an artist is where they can express themselves regardless of
gender, color and sex.
Resources:
1- To read the full Interview done by Fereshteh Daftari please refer to:
2- MoMA’s informational pamphlet.
3- Original Article from Nima Behnoud’s weblog:
3- Mona Hatoum’s Biography by History Department of Skidmore College.
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