Author Description

Mona Hatoum was born in Beirut in 1952, to Palestinian parents, and settled in London in 1975. She first became known for a series of performance and video pieces which focused with great intensity on the body. Since the beginning of the 1990s her work has shifted towards installation and sculpture. This book focuses on three new works created for the Tate. Dramatic in scale, Mouli-Julienne (x21), Continental Drift, and Homebound make familiar objects seem foreign, rendering them beautiful yet malevolent. Through the juxtaposition of opposites such as beauty and horror, Hatoum engages the viewer in conflicting emotions of desire and revulsion, fear and fascination.