Art 43 Basel - Essay Example

ART 43 BASEL The artworks by Mona Hatoum are illusive and varied; she has employed many techniques and materials throughout the whole of her art career. Most of her artwork is described within the strategies of “otherness” that are reflexive, and many more are conflated with generalizations of nationality and exile based ideas. She was born in Beirut in 1962, studied art in two different colleges and have many significant works of art that are associated with her. Her early works had a lot of political focus. They drew attention to the political struggles of her people. However, as her work developed she shifted from the focus on the political struggles. Most of her early work consisted of performance pieces, in which she had employed physical confrontation with the audience in order to make her political point. She had applied this procedure with the objective of making a direct statement using her body. The performance usually referenced her background and the political situation that was developing in Palestine. Her artwork contains strong references to surrealism and repeats many of the grid patterns that were found in most of the sculptures, and it brought out the element of the mind in relation to minimalism. Hatoum’s work defines a large variety of different subject matters using different theoretical frameworks. One interpretation of her work can be the description of the body, politics, gender and difference. She explores the dangers and the confinements of the domestic world. A very important point that arises from the different themes and ways in which she works is that all her works have multiple readings of interpretations (MCH Group 1). Witness Mona Hatoum Palestinian-born artist Mona Hatoum painted Witness in 2009, Porcelain biscuit 49cm by 24.3cm by 24 cm. Plinth, 121.5cm by 45cm by 45 cm, Edition of 10 plus 2 AP. This piece of art is a miniaturized rendition made of porcelain and is a representation of the Place des Martyrs that is found in the center of Beirut. The sculpture is now turned into an ornament, and faithfully reproduced the mutilation of the monument by the shells and the bullets of the civil war witnessed (“Mona Hatoum: Witness” 1). Many of her subjects have been related to the harbingers of the new world that included military interventions, exile, displacements and poverty that have led to insecurity and threat. This piece deals with the subject of medals and memorials, and shows that their meaning has changed through time. This piece was produced with the collaboration of the Iraq al Amir women’s cooperative society. The piece is a 70 cm high ceramic representation of the martyr’s monument that is found in the center of Beirut. The original statue was erected in 1926 and is a commemoration of the uprising against the Ottoman authority. This revolution resulted in the execution of Lebanese nationalists in a square known today as the Martyrs Square. The current bullet ridden status of the statue with a broken arm was damaged by the civil war in Lebanon and has deliberately been left un-restored to authenticate the unfortunate event – the civil war (“Mona Hatoum: Witness” 1). Through the artistic making of a representation of the statue and placing it inside a gallery, she interrogates the premise of the national vales that are shared and often ascribed to the monument and the questions that have developed about the assumed permanence through the turbulent times of change (“Mona Hatoum: Witness” 1). Dormiente Mona Hatoum Made in 2002, the Dormiente is made up of mild steel and measures 204 cm by 3.5 cm; the familiar object shifts in scale and mutates until the image takes a physiological charge that makes it appear dangerous and alluring. Concentration of large crystal spheres are arranged to form a web and a net-like structure that is suspended from above. It mimics the eye and forms the shape of a spider’s web trap. The Dormiente is an image of enlarged kitchen graters; she uses their enormity to transform the graters into a bed and a room partition. Their sharp edges can lead to serious injuries if they are improperly handled (Galleria Continua 1). The ability of the artist is to illuminate the dimensions of our everyday lives, which are uncanny cuts across the divisions in cultures. The simplicity of the materials that are used and grace with which the artist has combined and coupled with the ominous associations, which the materials conjure up, have enabled the artist to create ambivalence that activates the viewer’s imagination. The first and most effective experience of this work of art is physical. The work operates on both the intellectual and sensual levels. The connotations, meanings and associations that come after the initial physical experience as the imagination of the viewer and their intellect are fired by what they see (Galleria Continua 1). Conclusion For more than twenty-five years, the artist Mona Hatoum has been building a poetic and challenging artistic oeuvre that has taken form in the diverse and unconventional range of the media, which includes those sculptures, installations, photography and the works of paper. She started her career by making visceral performance art in the 1980s, which focused on the body with great intensity. Her work moved towards large-scale installations that are aimed to engage the viewer in the conflicting emotions of revulsion and desire, fascination and fear. In her sculptures, she transformed the everyday, familiar, domestic objects such as furniture and kitchen utensils into foreign things that are dangerous and threatening. Through this, she has managed to create works that employ the striped down language of minimalism, which are combined with a surrealist sense of humor that draws the viewer into an intellectual and emotive level (Artfacts.Net 1). The elements that are used in her works of art compel the viewer to an individual and unique response that retains the allusive quality. Her shift in emphasis from the rhetorical, political work can be observed; she appears to suggest metaphors in the displacement of parts and objects. It is with metaphors that she recalls the aspects of the uncanny. The displaced objects are used to create these amplified metaphors that suggest a certain memory or story. However, she manages to remain allusive in an open system; the signals are not settled or fixed with any certainty. I personally enjoyed the “Art 43 Basel;”although there were many art works on display, not all impressed me. I appreciated the experience at the exhibition and I hope to visit it again soon. Works Cited Artfacts.Net. Artfacts.Net Ltd. 2012. June 19, 2012. . Galleria Continua. Donne che corrono coi lupi. 2012. Web. June 19, 2012. . MCH Group. online catalogue Art 43 Basel. 2012. Web. June 19, 2012. . “Mona Hatoum: Witness.” Nafas Art Magazine. 2012. Web. June 19, 2012. . Read More