“Mona Hatoum: Twelve Windows”
Mona Hatoum with Inaash, Twelve Windows, 2012–13, 12 pieces of Palestinian embroidery on fabric, wooden clothes-pegs, and steel cable. © Mona Hatoum 2014; photograph © Joerg Lohse.
Title
Mona Hatoum: Twelve Windows
Dates
January 8–February 8, 2015
Overview
On the occasion of the 2015 Arts of the Islamic World Gala, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, presents Twelve Windows, an installation conceived by the artist Mona Hatoum.
Twelve Windows, 2012–13, was created in collaboration with Inaash, a Lebanese non-governmental organization founded in 1969 to create employment for Palestinian women in Lebanese refugee camps. Twelve embroidered pieces of fabric, or “windows,” one-meter-square each, are attached with wooden clothes-pegs to steel cables stretched between two walls. Each window, through its stitches and patterns, represents a key region of Palestine. Researched and designed by Malak Husseini Abdulrahim, the panels extend the long-standing tradition of Palestinian embroidery, passed from mother to daughter, which today is among the most tangible and enduring facets of Palestinian culture.
Visitors are invited to navigate their way through the installation, which features a network of steel cables that crisscross the length and act as hurdles to evoke the physical and mental barriers that make up the everyday experience of countless people around the world.
Mona Hatoum was born into a Palestinian family in Beirut, Lebanon, in 1952, and has lived and worked in London since 1975. Hatoum was Artist-in-Residence on the DAAD program in 2003–2004 and has since divided her time between Berlin and London. Hatoum has been the subject of numerous one-person museum exhibitions in Europe, North America, Asia, and Australia.
Organization
Mona Hatoum: Twelve Windows is presented courtesy of the artist and Alexander and Bonin Gallery, New York, in honor of the 2015 Arts of the Islamic World Gala.
Location
The Caroline Wiess Law Building
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
1001 Bissonnet Street
Media Contacts
Mary Haus, Whitney Radley, Laine Lieberman, and Vanessa Ramirez-Sparrow
MFAH Communications
vramirez-sparrow@mfah.org / 713.639.7554