Éxito, (hiper)visibilidad, ambivalencia: las instalaciones de Mona Hatoum

Abstract

At the end of the 1980s Mona Hatoum decided to give up performance and video and turn instead to installations. This article assesses the conditions in which this change came about and examines the context in which Hatoum’s installations became successful and visible. These works were created at a time when political art was immersed in a crisis in the London art scene. Due to their minimalist aesthetic, Hatoum's installations played an ambivalent role in this context, as the political commitment they sought to embody could easily be deactivated by the place in which where they were exhibited. The article argues that this ambivalence is inextricably linked to the strategies developed by Hatoum in order to negotiate her place in an art system especially concerned with institutionalising cultural differences.