About the work

Mona Hatoum has worked in a diverse range of media, including performance, video, photography, sculpture, installation and works on paper. Her work deals with issues of displacement, marginalisation, exclusion and systems of social and political control.

The Blues (DR), 2023 is part of a series of acrylic works on paper which I started making during the various pandemic lockdowns. The title refers both to the blue/black colour used and also to one’s state of mind. The grid, a device I have often returned to in my sculpture and installation work, in this case, takes on the character of a barred window or mashrabiya, the gridded carved wooden latticework screens characteristic of traditional architecture in the Middle East.

Date and country of birth

1952, LB

Career Highlights

Selection of recent solo exhibitions: Mona Hatoum, Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, Berlin, Germany (2022); Mona Hatoum, Georg Kolbe Museum, Berlin, Germany (2022);all of a quiver, KINDL – Centre for Contemporary Art, Berlin, Germany (2022); Valencia Institute of Modern Art, Valencia, Spain (2021);The 10th Hiroshima Art Prize, Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, Hiroshima, Japan (2018); Terra Infirma, The Menil Collection, Houston, USA (2018); Pulitzer Arts Foundation, St. Louis, Missouri, USA (2018); Tate Modern, London, UK (2016); Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki, Finland (2016).