The title of Mona Hatoum’s ‘Stool III’ ignores the drama happening on top of the furniture as a blood-red glass form looks ready to shift weight and crash to the floor. Referred to in other of Hatoum’s artwork as cells and looking like internal organs, the precipitously arranged red shape implies an impending crisis. (At Chelsea’s Alexander and Bonin through July 24th).
Mona Hatoum, Stool III, painted metal and glass, 30 ½ x 16 x 14 ½ in, 2014.
Traditional women’s work becomes political in an international way in Mona Hatoum’s latest solo show at Chelsea’s Alexander and Bonin Gallery. Featuring panels woven by Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, the installation symbolizes cultural practices interrupted by war. (Through October 18th).
Mona Hatoum with Inaash, Twelve Windows, 12 pieces of Palestinian embroidery on fabric, wooden clothes pegs, steel cable, each 39 3/8 x 29 3/8 inches, 2012-13.
London-based Palestinian artist Mona Hatoum is known for sculptures that question the sanctity and safety of home; here, it’s the visitor who must beware of a prickly welcome. (Spotted in Alexander and Bonin Gallery’s third floor viewing space, Chelsea).
Mona Hatoum, Doormat, stainless steel and nickel-plated pins, glue and canvas, 1 x 28 x 16 inches, 1996.
Mona Hatoum’s 1999 sculpture Home (featuring kitchen implements with wires running out of them, accompanied by the sound of pulsating current) inspired this unsettling exhibition plumbing the darker side of the places in which we live. High on anxiety but regrettably low on risk factor, this hit parade of big-name artists still affords the pleasure of reconnecting with iconic artworks about painful circumstances.
Family relations simmer in the show’s best pieces. Louise Bourgeois’s claustrophobic house teeming with phallic/breast/fungal forms and Rachel Whiteread’s black urethane mattress creased by a labial fold conjure a dread matched by a Luc Tuymans painting of place settings that foretells the drama of a family gathering.
Violence spills over in Gregor Schneider’s photos of a strung-up sex doll and in Mamma Andersson’s painting of a disordered bedroom with ominously bloodred furniture. But the most disturbing pieces hint at souls lost to the chaos (Jeff Wall’s photo of a disheveled character standing by the door of his decrepit domicile) or obsessive order (a Thomas Ruff living-room scene) of their lives.
Even a cheery painting of a beach house by Maureen Gallace turns suspiciously, unbelievably idealized in this context, while a whimsical paintbrush by Michael Brown, its handle crafted from melted Neil Young records, seems primed for a cover-up. Viewed from the right angle, David Altmejd’s plaster sculpture of a fantastical lair with dangling staircases turns out to be the head of some deranged giant. Such twists add intrigue to this domestic thriller of a group show.
