Author Description

Each of Mona Hatoum's works can be read as a formula for human existence, expressed in a penetrating visual language that is both complex and puzzling. As the artist herself points out, iOneis first experience of a work of art is physical. I appreciate works that have sensual as well as intellectual impact. Meanings, connotations, and associations begin to emerge only after the initial physical experience, when the imagination, the intellect, and the psyche are ignited by what one has seen.i The daughter of Palestinian parents, Hatoum has long been regarded in Great Britain and the U.S. as one of the most important artists of her generation. Born in Lebanon in 1952 and a resident of London since 1975, her sensitivity to themes of power and identity has been heightened by a life lived outside her homeland. Many of her objects, video pieces, and installations deal with aspects of institutionalized violence and the vulnerability of the individual; her central point of reference is the body, in many cases her own. This is the first book to document the full breadth of Mona Hatoum's oeuvre, up to and including her most recent projects.