Mona Hatoum, Homebound (2000) - Kitchen utensils, furniture, electric wire, light bulbs, computerised dimmer switch, amplifier, speakers, installation, dimensions variable
Presented by Phoebe Lung (1153921)
Mona Hatoum
-born into a Palestinian family in Lebanon(1952)
-unable to return home due to the civil war,
forced to stay in London since 1975
-state of exile greatly influence to her work
-1980s: visceral performance art focused on ‘body’
-1990s: moved increasing towards large scale installations
What is Installation art?
“ Installation art uses sculptural materials and other media to modify the way a particular space is experienced. Installation art is not necessarily confined to gallery spaces and can be any material intervention in everyday public or private spaces.
Installation art incorporates almost any media to create an experience in a particular environment. Materials used in contemporary installation art range from everyday and natural materials to new media such as video, sound, performance, immerse virtual reality and the internet. Some installation are site-specific in that they are designed to only exist in the space for which they were created.” from Wikipedia
-main subject: domestic kitchen
-a combination of tubular steel and plastic furniture, kitchen appliances, lamps, a small animal cage and a toy train
-long table: metal kitchen appliances e.g. colanders, sieves…etc.
-wires snake through the installation, connected to
each utensils with crocodile clips
-electrical currents make the small light bulbs periodically illuminating
-Current controlled by a software programmeÞ alter frequency and intensity of light, flickering on and off in random sequence
-Speakers amplify the crakling sound of electricity coursing through wires and metal objects
-It is set back behind a barrier of thin horizontal steel wires Þ separate viewers from it
Imagine the effects:
-disturbing, unstable and dangerous feelings
-great contrast to conventional concept of kitchen: safe, fragrant
-viewers: physical and psychological disturbance, contradict to originally expectations
-modern furniture VS ancient architecture (not main focus)
Mona Hatoum: ‘I always try to make the work in such a way that it can include you and your experience as well as mine’
Personal experience of ‘home’
Political and Identity
State of exile and displacement
-regards London(Britain) as “home” or a place for temporary stay?
-unsettled sense of being home and homeless (juxtaposition and disorder of the furniture)
In broader meaning, ‘home’=‘homeland’(Lebanon)
-flickering light and annoying sound of current Þ wars, political instability of homeland, tortured place?
-audiences’ feeling=artist’s feeling
barriers separate artist(audiences) from her home and family (installation)
Gender
Mona Hatoum: ‘I see kitchen utensils as exotic objects…...Being raised in a culture where women have to be taught the art of cooking as part of the process of being primed for marriage, I had an antagonistic attitude to all of that’ (quoted in Domestic Disturbance, p.65).
-examine the power relationship along gender divide
-man-oriented society: women spend lots of the time in kitchen, ‘prison’?
Question for discuss
In this work (homebound 2000), the artist tends to express ambiguous meanings by applying elements such as: ‘home’, ‘identity’, ‘political’ and ‘gender’.
Are these elements divert the foci from the ‘home’ topic? OR they help to deepen the artist’s ideas of ‘home’? Why?
Bibliography
http://www.whitecube.com/artists/hatoum/1/
http://www.alexanderandbonin.com/artists/hatoum/hatoum.html http://www.hamburgerkunsthalle.de/archiv/seiten/en_hatoum.html
http://www.moma.org/exhibitions/2003/mona_hatoum_interv.html
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