Mona Hatoum at the Tate.

Mona Hatoum was an artist of whom I was only vaguely aware before she came to the Tate.  I think only her neon globe had entered my awareness before I saw her exhibition and it was partly for that reason I went to the exhibition.

I am glad I went but I am still not entirely sure what I think. Hatoum (all artists are referred to by the second name apart from Damien Hirst, who is Damien for reasons presumably of incredible pretension) is primarily a conceptual artist who produced installations.  I am wary of installations.  They can often be awful, I have difficulty relating to them and they often become outdated very quickly.  They are also often, unspeakably self-indulgent.

There were traces of all these things in the Hatoum exhibition but it was mainly over-ridden by a number of very good ideas well presented.  Hatoum has a distinctive and established style which is all about industrial metal, electricity wires and the threat of confinement and violence.  These are powerful themes that she, for the most part handles well and occasionally very well.

Enter the exhibition you are presented with a large felt or fabric cube.  Moving swiftly on you get to the good stuff.  In the main room there is a circular column with gaps in it.  You crane inside and can watch what appears to be a video of a colonoscopy.  It is strangely hypnotic and though provoking. What dominates this room though are these enormous metallic cheese graters.  They have a dark patina to them and one, is three joined together and arranged to resemble a Victorian dressing screen. Liked them.  Very good.  

In a small room just off this are arranged in a square horseshoe shape racks of empty chicken wire cages.  They are interesting objects in themselves but what adds an extra dimension is the lighting.  A light rest on the floor, tethered to the ceiling by a long wire.  This causes the light to gently roll around.  It is obvious why this piece needs a small room and well done to the curators for installing it so well as essential aspect of the piece is the shadows that the rolling light casts.  This is what Hatoum does well and is something she pulls off in other (and best) exhibits.  She creates what is a good and striking image but adds something that means the experience of actually seeing the installation in person adds and extra dimension.  In my view this is something that makes conceptual art good.

There were in the next room framed burnt pieces of toilet paper and handmade paper with hairs on them.  Sounds awful right but they were actually quite good.  Vaguely disgusting but still interesting works of art.  On the floor next to them was a large square made of blocks of soap.  They had been scored in such a way that what looks like a feint coastal outline. 

At the far end of this leg of the exhibition is, for me, the standout work in the whole thing.  Behind what looks like an electric fence is a room made up of tables, chairs with no cushions, empty bed spreads and similar furniture. The whole thing is adorned in an array of large copper wires leading to lights of various sizes.  As you stand (or sit) there and watch the lights slowly light up and dim again.  The increase in light levels is accompanied by a terrific electrical humming noise. It is difficult to describe the experience or show it by photograph but it is an installation well worth seeing.

A corridor leads to the return leg.  A small cabinet contains a number of pieces including what looked like a Perspex block with toenails embedded in it.  On the wall is a medicine cabinet filled with a collection of very attractive glass hand-grenades, each one with a different coloured core.  The contrast of the subject and the pleasantness of their presentation works well without being trite.

The corridor opens into a large room dominated by the famous red neon globe.  I like maps and map related art so this appealed to me, as did a non-Mercator projection map in simple white with grey outlines on the wall.  They are both overtly political but, and this I think is the point, work as worthwhile pieces of art without this.  Again this is something Hatoum pulls off which makes her a superior conceptual artists is her work is supplemented by the political/cultural points they make rather than simply relying on them.

Into the next room. On the floor a large circular container filled with sand.  It is bisected by a metal arm which rotates.  It has teeth on one side and a wiper on the other so it is continually creating and erasing ridges in the sand.  The sound of the sand shimmering as it is moved around is part of the experience. This is gently hypnotic and I stood contemplating it for several minutes. This, like the electric room, is a piece that rewards seeing in person.

As indeed the piece in a side room which is a cube made of strands of barbed wire, suspended from the ceiling and arranged in rigid ranks.  What I enjoyed was being able to walk all the way round it and see the gaps that open up along the various axis. It is complemented by a tiny piece hanging on the wall next to it of a square net made of hair.

Before the final room are cuboid large wired cages each of which contain a differently shaped amorphous red glass bottle.  I can see what she was trying to do with these but they didn’t really grab me.

You leave on a high. The final room is filled with a large circle made.  There is in the middle a square made of cross hatched intertwining thick red wires, woven together.  These wires emanate from the square and spiral out to form a circle the circumference of which is marked by light bulbs.  These bulbs light up and dim as you watch.  A fine piece well presented.

I have missed out of this description some of the pieces that appealed to me less.  There were some (various chairs) that left me a bit flat.  On the whole though it is a very good exhibition.  If you want to see installations with an edge, with something about them, this would be a good exhibition to try, only you can't because such is the on the pulse way in which this blog is written, the exhibition has been and gone.