Mona Hatoum

by Michael Archer

"Born in the Lebanon, Palestinian artist Mona Hatoum was exiled to London, where she has lived and worked since the mid 1970s and where, in 1995, she was nominated for the prestigious Turner Prize. Through performance, video, sculpture and installation she creates architectonic spaces which relate to the body, language and the condition of exile. One of her most spellbinding and best known works is a video installation titled Corps etranger, where the spectator enters a small pavilion and takes a visual journey through all the orifices of the artist's body. Such works combine states of emotion and longing with the formal simplicity of Minimalism, creating powerful evocations of displacement, denial and otherness. Hatoum's many international exhibitions include the Centre Georges Pompidou, in Paris (1994); her work tours extensively to museums throughout the United States in 1997." "The distinguished British critic Guy Brett, explores key themes around a sense of place, the body and com