Mona Hatoum is the artist chosen to represent the 13th Women’s Biennial, organized by the Ferrara-based UDI-Union of Women in Italy in collaboration with the Ferrara City Council’s Galleries of Modern and Contemporary Art, in a major solo exhibition to be held at the Ferrara Pavilion of Contemporary Art from April 6 to June 1, 2008.
With a career spanning more than twenty-five years, Mona Hatoum is a leading international artistic personality. Her works have been shown in solo and group exhibitions in the most prestigious galleries and museums in Europe, the United States, Canada and Australia.
This is an important and qualifying choice that continues and concludes a path of investigation initiated in the last two editions of the Women’s Biennial, oriented toward representing a production of women artists focused on the themes of geographic nomadism and cultural identity, involving women artists who are diverse in geographical origin, socio-cultural background and generation.
Mona Hatoum was born in Beirut to a Palestinian family and was forced into exile in 1975 when civil war broke out in Lebanon in conjunction with one of her trips to London, preventing her from returning to her home country. After attending art schools in London, she became famous in the mid-1980s for a series of performances and videos that, with great intensity, focused on themes of the body in conflict situations. The artist then also carried her reflection on these themes into large-scale installations and sculptures, which, since the early 1990s, have become her main means of expression. Mona Hatoum has developed a language in which familiar, domestic objects, such as chairs, beds, cribs and kitchen utensils, are transformed into foreign and threatening entities in which runs a vein, hidden but always present, of hostility and danger.
The exhibition, curated by Lola Bonora, opens with some examples of his early videos and performances and presents a selection of more than 50 works of different techniques, including large installations, sculptures, photographs and works on paper, most of which have never been exhibited in Italy. Also on view will be some recent works that have never been shown before.
Numerous collateral initiatives related to the themes developed by the artist are planned during the opening period of the exhibition, including a round table in collaboration with the University of Ferrara, a film review with works by female directors from the Mediterranean area, workshops by students of the Dosso Dossi Art Institute of Ferrara and In Tensione, an installation by Maria Vittoria Perrelli dedicated to Mona Hatoum at Zuni Arte Contemporanea.
Edited by.
Lola Bonora
Organizers
Biennial Women’s Committee of the UDI (composed of Lola Bonora, Anna Maria Fioravanti Baraldi, Dida Spano, Anna Quarzi, Ansalda Siroli, Antonia Trasforini, Liviana Zagagnoni) and Gallerie d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea and Musei Civici d’Arte Antica with the contribution of the Province of Ferraraand the Region of Emilia-Romagna