In the beginning there is a body, her body, that of the artist Mona Hatoum (1952) born in Lebanon and living in Great Britain. Her body crawls over the floor, is served at the table, swifted in connection and cellophan and covered with something that looks like blood. Sometimes that body is locked up in a transparent cupboard – it looks like it is choking, to everyone. At other times the barefoot stumbles through a busy shopping street, a few high leather Dr. Martens Boots with laces attached to the coloring ankles.
She makes a name for this body.
The young Hatoum fled to London in 1975 because of the outbreak of the bloody civil war in Lebanon. In London she went to the Art Academy, between 1980 and 1987 she made a number of crushing, sometimes nauseating performances. She took a closer look at her own, often literally objectified body. There is always the association with violence, threat, intimidation, imprisonment (of the female body) and-in the background-a meager Western politics that contributes to the war in the Middle East.
In Kunsthal Kade in Amersfoort, those old performances – documented on video, photo and in writing, and brought together in one and a half room – still form a wider clarion bump. The handsome thing is that Hatoum lets the viewer himself guessed to meaning, like pieces of stone that you collect and sweep in a pile. Again and again you wonder: what is it that I see? Nowhere is the message unambiguous.
Clip-and-ready visual language
After 1987, Hatoum stopped those performances and focused on sculptures, installations and works on paper. In particular, she became successful. Her work is housed in a foundation named after her that organizes exhibitions all over the world – this year alone in Kade, in the Barbican in London, White Cube in Seoul and more. Three art students receive a grid of the foundation of 6,000 pounds every year.
In Kade you can see a large selection of her oeuvre from 1980. Five minutes walk away, in the Elleboogkerk, is the newest work Web (2025) installed (more about that). The emphasis at Kade is on the figurative works. That is unfortunate, because the minimalist, abstract works of Hatoum-monumental rasters, scaffolding and bunk bed-like constructions-have the undefined expressiveness that also have its performances. They let the visitor grab and guess to where the bitter him is. And, not unimportant: they keep Hatoum’s figurative works in check. That is not happening now, but it is necessary, it appears in Kade. In the later decades of her career, Hatoum tends to formulate, as a pop art artist, political messages in clip-and-ready, easy visual language. The light spectacle Misbah (2006-2007) For example, consists of a rotating copper lantern hanging in a darkened room. In the copper cover of the lantern, figures of running soldiers with guns and stars are cut out. Their projections swirl on the walls, such as with a fairy tale lantern above a cot.
Photos: Peter Cox
Kitchen knife
The recent work Still Life (Medical Cabinet) IV (2024) Shows a white, medical wall cabinet with colorful glass prints of hand grenades. A nice but harmless joke. Also Untitled (Wheelchair) (1998-2018, Hatoum often makes series of the same sculpture) has such a clear one peat. A stainless steel wheelchair is motionless in the museum room. You can sit in it, but the caregiver who pushes the chair will cut his hands on it: the handles of the wheelchair consist of kitchen knives.
Hatoums are much better and less unambiguous in which they apparently ‘innocent’ household objects turns into grim fanters. Paravent (2008) is a fold -out cheese grater made of black steel that has been blown up to the proportions of a camera screen. Another top work is Home (1990), a kitchen table with a meat mill, grater, colander, orange press and more. Corruser and ready for use, but beware, everything is under power. Home is a grim salute on the terror and repetitive beauty of domestic work. It is also a warning: every daily utensil can become unreachable, at any time in history.
Gaza
Last November, Hatoum, together with famous colleagues such as Richard Long, Wolfgang Tillmans, Shirin Neshat and Subodh Gupta, organized a fundraiser in London for Doctors without Borders in Gaza. About the ‘real’ war of Israel in the Middle East, about the genocide against the Palestinian population, Hatoum has not commented and does not want to comment. That is quite remarkable for a child of Palestinian refugees driven by Israel. “Just look at my work,” is her message.
Hatoum’s newest work hangs in the Elbow Church in Amersfoort Weba fishnet-like construction of thin steel wire to which transparent glass balls are attached. Despite the size, just about half the church ceiling, Web But don’t get impressive. Not in shape – because such a fishing network on the ceiling is obvious. Nor in terms of meaning. According to the room text Web on ‘oppressive imprisonment’ and on ‘mutual connection’. But with its intentions, the transparent work disappears against the background of the white -cut church.
Web Is beautiful, but lacks the fringe edge that characterizes Hatoum’s best works. Web Is graceful, but there is no critical commitment or the desire for critical distance. On the contrary: Web Remember everything. It is a frivolity, easy -going and superfluous.
Photos: Peter Cox