ART-REVIEW:Mona Hatoum at Centre George Pompidou,Paris

The viewer can’t see or acculturate, Mona’s Hatoum retrospective at Centre George Pompidou-Paris with only one visit. Not because it occupies a large space, but because it concentrates twenty years of work, a fact that for some viewers and specialists is looking negative, considering that the artist gave the best of herself in the past and now she seems blocked, due the fact that she doesn’t exhibit recent works. Despite the fact that we partly agree with this opinion, we must not forget that artists like Mona Hatoum, with a body work with so powerful and meaningful are undeniable. The works of exhibition (sculptures, installations, video-performances), are so strong and articulate a speech that at first looks political but then the viewer understands that are deeply social and up to the minute, touching burning issues, such as the work of photo with a glass world which is dissolved and reconstructed at all times, canceling the determinate and the stability, in combination and juxtaposition with a city view, through the windows as Paris, which through its structural principles, looks stable. Simultaneously, a dialogue is created between interior and exterior, the visible and the hidden. Therefore, the time between the conception the realization of the final work does not really matter, is purely technical because her work is perpetual, touching and negotiating with serious and extremely important issues. Mona’s Hatoum particular retrospective has excellent curating, that gives the viewer a complete image of her work, excellent selection of different series, except from the repeated use of small shape art pieces that surround the large sculptures. We realize the need of the artist to communicate the progress stadium of her work, but just like the interview of the artist explaining her work at the end of the exhibition, are two elements, in our opinion, completely unnecessary, since a work of this caliber is breathtaking that’s why, you want to come back, again and again to see the word from another side.-Efi Michalarou