The Pompidou Centre celebrates the work of the British artist Mona Hatoum until September 28th. Twenty one years after the Centre organised the artist’s first solo museum show, the commitment has been renewed, as over one hundred productions from the 1970s to the present chart the sometimes chaotic course of this committed contemporary artist. Staying at the Hotel Paris France, you will have a unique opportunity to appreciate the work of this major talent.
An artist at the confluence of worlds
Born in Lebanon in 1952 of Palestinian parents, Mona Hatoum became an exile at the age of 23 when civil war broke out in her homeland while she was away. She found refuge in England, where she studied at Byam Shaw School of Art and the Slade School of Fine Art. Educated in French and Italian schools in Lebanon, and then in an American university, she is an artist who continually blurs the concept of origins and articulates dislocation, thereby exploring an unstable universe.
An artist obsessed with universalism
After leaving Lebanon, her work primarily focussed on reflections regarding the power of the state and control mechanisms, yet Mona Hatoum has continually evolved during her forty-year career while maintaining an avant-garde spirit. She has experimented with new media to question the place of man in society. Man, like the viewer, lives in his own reality. Her work, she says, is designed to bring out a multiplicity of realities in a multiplicity of spectators.
Protean creativity
The exhibition at the Centre Pompidou showcases the plurality of the work. Mona Hatoum has experimented with video, but has also created gigantic installations made from industrial objects. In addition to these forms, the exhibition presents drawings, photos, recorded performance art and sculptures.
Forty years of artistic production brought together in one exhibition
Mona Hatoum has experienced two distinct periods. In the 80s her work explored the possibilities of video and performance art. In the following decade, art installations became her favoured mode of expression. Both periods are fully documented in this retrospective. Photos, drawings and objects are used to convey a world in which familiar sights become disturbing realities and everyday domesticity assumes a menacing air.
The Pompidou Centre, a cultural showcase a few hundred metres from the Hotel Paris France
The Centre is located just a ten minute walk from our location. Leaving the hotel, you just head left along the rue de Turbigo to the Arts et Métiers, then take the rue Beaubourg, along which you will find the Centre on your right. To get there by Metro, you only have to take line 11 to Rambuteau. So go ahead. Treat yourself to a cultural afternoon in the company of a radical artist who will encourage you to see your world in a different light.
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Exhibition Centre 'Centre Pompidou'
Hotel Paris France, a charming 2-star hotel near the Louvre
Picture << Centre Pompidou frontage >> copyright holder: Tourist Office Paris - Photographer Fabian Charaffi