Mona Hatoum, White Cube, Bermondsey

Mona Hatoum is known for her uncompromising art. Historically, her work has tackled a range of issues from global conflict and surveillance to confinement and violence. Born in Lebanon in 1952 to Palestinian parents and then stranded in London after the outbreak of war at home, Hatoum’s themes were quick to emerge. Her early works took the form of performance-based feats of endurance. In 1985 she walked barefoot through East London for an hour with a pair of boots tied to her ankles.

These days Hatoum is better know for her installations, which transform familiar objects into much more threatening counterparts. Exhibited at her retrospective at Tate Modern in 2016, were, among other things, a partition screen, which looked very much like a giant cheese grater, its scale making it appear like an instrument of torture. Hatoum also uses maps to convey ideas of global tensions. Hot Spot (2017) a term used to describe volatile areas of conflict, takes the form of a globe constructed from steel, in which the countries of the world are outlined in neon red tubing. The whole world, she is saying, has the potential to be a conflict zone.

In the first exhibition since her Tate retrospective, Hatoum brings together a collection of recent works, many of which are made from heavy, industrial materials. She has drawn inspiration again from maps with a large-scale glass piece, which is suspended from the ceiling of the White Cube’s 9x9x9 gallery. Also on display is an expanded version of Hatoum’s installation Quarters, in which an array of steel bunk beds are assembled to form the shape of a cross.