Mona Hatoum

Lives and works in London
B. 1952

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Mona Hatoum’s poetic and political work incorporates installations, sculpture, video, photography and works on paper.

Hatoum started her career in the 1980s making visceral video and performance work that focused intensely on the body. Since the early 1990s, however, she has increasingly created large-scale installations that aim to engage the viewer in conflicting emotions of desire and revulsion, fear and fascination. In her sculptures, Hatoum transforms familiar, everyday items such as chairs, cots and kitchen utensils into works that seem foreign, dangerous or even threatening. In installations such as Corps étranger (1994) and Deep Throat (1996) she defamiliarises the body by filming the interior landscape of her own body using an endoscopic camera.

In the large-scale works Homebound (2000) and Sous tension (1999) an assemblage of household furniture is wired-up with an audible electric current. These works combine a sense of threat with a surrealist sense of humour, drawing the viewer in, both on an emotive and intellectual level. In works such as Traffic (2004) or Twins (2006) Hatoum uses found materials, patinated with use and laden with personal histories, to create delicate, powerful sculptures on an intimate scale.

Mona Hatoum was born into a Palestinian family in Beirut, Lebanon in 1952 and has lived and worked in London since 1975. Solo exhibitions include KINDL – Centre for Contemporary Art, Berlin (2022-23); Georg Kolbe Museum, Berlin (2022-23); Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, Berlin (2022); Magasin III, Stockholm (2022); Valencia Institute of Modern Art, Spain (2021); Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, Japan (2017); Menil Collection, Houston, Texas, touring to Pulitzer Arts Foundation, St Louis, MO (2017-18); Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, touring to Tate Modern, London and Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki (2015-16); Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha (2014); Kunstmuseum St. Gallen, Switzerland (2013); Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona (2012); Beirut Art Centre (2010); Fondazione Querini Stampalia, Venice (2009); Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing (2009); Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Sydney (2005); Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg, touring to Magasin III, Stockholm and Kunstmuseum Bonn, Germany (all 2004); Tate Britain, London (2000); Castello di Rivoli, Turin (1999); Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, touring to New Museum, New York (1997).

Hatoum has participated in numerous group exhibitions including Documenta 14, Kassel, Germany and Athens (both 2017); 6th Marrakesh Biennale (2016); 5th Moscow Biennale; Guggenheim Bilbao, Spain (both 2011); 15th Biennale of Sydney (2006); 51st Venice Biennale (2005); Documenta 11, Kassel, Germany (2002); The Turner Prize, Tate Britain, London (1995); 46th Venice Biennale (1995); and 4th Istanbul Biennial (1995).

Among other awards, Hatoum has received the Praemium Imperiale (2019), the 10th Hiroshima Art Prize (2017) and the Joan Miró Prize (2011).

Artworks

1985

2009

1994-2004

2017

Available Artworks

Mona Hatoum

Untitled (wheelchair II), 1999

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Mona Hatoum

Hair Necklace (silver), 2025

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Mona Hatoum

Untitled (Hong Kong cage) II, 2025

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Mona Hatoum

Divide, 2025

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Mona Hatoum

Inside Out (concrete), 2019

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Mona Hatoum

Misbah, 2006-2007

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Exhibitions

Gallery Exhibition

Mona Hatoum

6 March – 12 April 2025

Seoul

Gallery Exhibition

Mona Hatoum
Remains to be Seen

12 September – 3 November 2019

Bermondsey, London

Gallery Exhibition

Mona Hatoum
Remains of the Day

7 September – 17 November 2018

Hong Kong

Gallery Exhibition

Mona Hatoum
Bunker

25 February – 2 April 2011

Mason’s Yard, London

Museum Exhibitions

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Museum Exhibition

Mona Hatoum at Turner Contemporary

7 February - 21 April 2025 | Margate, UK

Museum Exhibition

Miroslaw Balka, Mona Hatoum and Gabriel Orozco at ‘Soap Culture’ in Venice

18 April - 15 June 2024 | Venice, Italy

Museum Exhibition

Mona Hatoum and Käthe Kollwitz at Kunsthaus Zürich

18 August - 12 November 2023 | Switzerland

Museum Exhibition

Mona Hatoum at The ICA Boston

6 October 2022 - 26 February 2023 | Boston, USA

Films

In Focus

Mona Hatoum at White Cube Seoul

Hannah Gruy, director at White Cube and curator of Mona Hatoum’s solo exhibition at White Cube Seoul, introduces the artist’s poetic works, which engage the viewer in conflicting emotions of seduction and revulsion, fear and fascination.