Mona Hatoum and the museum presence of fragile structures
Published on 08/26/2026 at 12:46 | Editorial responsibility: Rafael MĂĽller, Editor-in-Chief AD HOC NEWS
Mona Hatoum has built a sculptural language in which beds, grids and maps become instruments of quiet threat. Her monumental site-specific project Over, under and in between at Fondazione Prada in Milan anchors this position within the European museum landscape.
Museum spaces as charged terrain
At Fondazione Prada’s Cisterna building in Milan, Over, under and in between unfolds across three large-scale installations that turn the former distillery into a field of fragile balances. The project runs through November 9, 2026 and is framed as a site-specific response to a time of instability.
One of the central works, Web (2026), suspends a constellation of hand-blown glass orbs within a stainless-steel structure that recalls both a spider’s web and an architectural grid. Below, the floor-based installation Map (red) (2026) scatters around 30,000 crimson glass beads into the outline of a world map, rendering global borders as a precarious field of potential collapse.
Collections and commissions in Europe and beyond
Fondazione Prada’s invitation adds to a museum trajectory that has included the Barbican’s exhibition Encounters: Giacometti x Mona Hatoum. Divide in London and the residency-based solo show Behind the Seen at Museo Nivola in Sardinia. Both projects stressed how Hatoum reworks modernist sculpture toward questions of exile, surveillance and bodily vulnerability.
Beyond temporary exhibitions, Hatoum’s work increasingly enters public space and infrastructure. White Cube highlights that she has conceived a permanent commission for Gare Le Bourget Aéroport near Paris, underscoring how her vocabulary of suspension and obstruction migrates from galleries into everyday transit environments.
All news and background on Mona Hatoum
For additional reporting on Mona Hatoum’s exhibitions, commissions and institutional projects, the AD HOC NEWS archive offers further context, interviews and cross-references to related artists.
The work core of Mona Hatoum
Hatoum’s practice moves between sculpture, installation, video and works on paper, with a persistent focus on how power inscribes itself into domestic and architectural forms. Beds, kitchen utensils, maps and cages appear repeatedly, scaled up or reconfigured into objects that are simultaneously familiar and menacing.
Where the artist stands now
By all accounts, Mona Hatoum’s recent institutional projects and commissions consolidate her position as a key voice in politically and corporeally charged installation art within major European and international museum contexts.
Key facts on Mona Hatoum
- Artist: Mona Hatoum
- Medium / Genre: Sculpture and installation (conceptual)
- Born: 1952, Beirut, Lebanon
- Place(s) of practice: London-based practice with international projects
- Active since: Early 1980s, with performance and video works preceding large-scale installations
- Key work groups: Measures of Distance, Homebound, Hot Spot, Over, under and in between
- Current/last exhibition: Over, under and in between, Fondazione Prada, Milan, 2026
- Major collections: Tate (London), Centre Pompidou (Paris), MoMA (New York), Nationalgalerie (Berlin)
- Awards: Multiple international honors including the Joan MirĂł Prize (2011) and Praemium Imperiale (2019)
- Next date: currently no announced date in the 30-day window
Frequently asked questions about Mona Hatoum
Where can I currently experience major installations by Mona Hatoum?
Large-scale works by Mona Hatoum form the core of the exhibition Over, under and in between at Fondazione Prada in Milan, where the artist has transformed the Cisterna building with new site-specific installations.
How does Mona Hatoum use everyday objects in her work?
Hatoum frequently enlarges or reconfigures domestic items such as beds, kitchen utensils and maps, turning them into charged structures that point to surveillance, displacement and bodily vulnerability, as seen in works like Web, Map (red) and earlier cage-like sculptures.
Which public institutions collect works by Mona Hatoum?
Major museums including Tate in London, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Centre Pompidou in Paris and the Nationalgalerie in Berlin hold works by Hatoum, underscoring her established position within contemporary art collections on both sides of the Atlantic.
This article was produced with a.i. support and editorially reviewed. All statements without guarantee; auction results, exhibition dates and awards may change at short notice.
