The Intericonic Objects of Mona Hatoum: Our Modernity that Remains

Abstract

The British-Palestinian contemporary artist Mona Hatoum combines the legacy of western avant-gardes with highly politicized everyday objects from the Arab region, resulting in a number of “bilingual” artworks operating on two referential systems at once. This article examines the plastic strategies behind this phenomenon, as well as some of the confusion it has caused in critical reception. With the aid of historical sources and comparative elements, a reconsideration of three main works by Hatoum will reveal how a more modernist approach, instead of the postmodern one usually associated with them, may better account for their hybridity.