Press Release: Mona Hatoum

05.17.99

THE INTERNATIONAL ARTIST-IN-RESIDENCE PROGRAM

New Works: 99.2

Laura Aguilar, ROSEMEAD, CA

Mona Hatoum, LONDON, ENGLAND

Regina Vater, AUSTIN, TX

Exhibition: June 11, 1999 ?ly 18, 1999

Opening: Thursday, June 10, 1999, 6:30-8:30 PM

Artists' Dialogue: Friday, June 11, 1999 at 6:30 PM

ArtPace, A Foundation for Contemporary Art | San Antonio presents New Works:
99.2, a series of installations by the current participants of our International Artist-in-
Residence Program. An opening celebration will take place on Thursday, June 10, and
the following evening, Laura Cottingham, a New York-based art critic, will moderate an
artists' dialogue.

Mona Hatoum

Mona Hatoum's work is both deeply personal and quietly political, investigating her
individual and cultural relationships with contemporary social injustices. Grounded in
feminism and with a sensitive global approach, she has employed minimalist tools to
present formal and social concerns, examining issues of subjectivity, emotional space and
the human body. Using metaphor and poetry, found material and fabricated objects, her
evocative works offer viewers their own experience as they read and contemplate her
enigmatic expressions. Her work has taken many forms, ranging from performance and
video to sculpture and installation.

During her residency at ArtPace, Hatoum has explored a range of ideas and
mediums. Continuing her investigation of domestic objects and the body, Hatoum
presents a number of sculpture-based works. The central object is a prison cell-sized
reproduction of an empty birdcage that resonates with tensions between seduction and
confinement and suggests quiet violence. A second birdcage, scaled to a child's crib,
offers another transformation of this otherwise banal object. The body is directly
referenced in a more narrative work, in which maps of the artist's travels are embroidered
in hair on a pillowcase. These elegant objects share a common space, encouraging
viewers to construct their own narratives and poetry as they draw connections between
the individual pieces.

Born in 1952 in Beirut, Lebanon, Hatoum lives and works in London, England. She
studied at the Beirut University College, the Byam Shaw School of Art and The Slade
School of Art in London. Since the early 1980s, Hatoum has exhibited extensively,
including solo exhibitions and performances at Franklin Furnace, New York; Western
Front Art Centre, Vancouver, Canada; The Arnolfini Gallery, Bristol, England; Centre
Georges Pompidou, Paris, France; The Fabric Workshop, Philadelphia, PA; Capp Street
Project, San Francisco, CA; De Appel, Amsterdam, The Netherlands; White Cube,
London, England; and Alexander & Bonin, New York, where she is represented. In 1997
a major solo exhibition was held at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago and
The New Museum for Contemporary Art in New York. She has been included in a
number of major international exhibitions: Sense and Sensibility, The Museum of
Modern Art, New York; Cocido y Crudo, Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid; the 1994
Havana Biennale, Cuba; the 1995 Venice Biennale, Italy; ARS 95, Helsinki, Finland; as
well as the Turner Prize exhibition at the Tate Gallery, London, England.

Hatoum was selected by: Dan Cameron, Annette DiMeo Carlozzi, Amada Cruz,
Kellie Jones, Hans-Ulrich Obrist and Nancy Rubins

445 North Main Avenue San Antonio TX 78205 t 210 212 4900 f 210 212 4990 www.artpace.org