About this Book

La 4e de couverture indique : Born in Beirut to a Palestinian family in 1952, Mona Hatoum settled in London in 1975 after civil war broke out in Lebanon while she was on a visit to Britain. Her work addresses difficult and frequently confrontational themes, such as violence and oppression, often in reference to the human body - its vulnerability and its resilience. From her early narrative performances and videos, to later sculptures and installations where geometry and abstraction predominate, Hatoum challenges our vision of the world, exposing its contradictions and complexities. Through the juxtaposition of opposites, notably beauty and horror, she engages us in conflicting emotions of desire and revulsion, fear and fascination. Drawing on expansive career, this richly illustrated book reflects thirty-five years of consistently poetic and radical thinking. Eight essays, by a range of internationally renowned writers and curators, cover both the theory and practice of Hatoum's work, making this the essential book on one of the most distinctly powerful voices in contemporary art.