Electrified (variable IV)
Magasin III has followed Mona Hatoum’s practice since the early 1990s. In 2004, an extensive retrospective exhibition of her work was presented at Magasin III – a collaboration with Hamburger Kunsthalle and Kunstmuseum Bonn. The exhibition was the largest presentation of Mona Hatoum’s work in Sweden to date. In the spring of 2022, almost two decades later, we once again invited Mona Hatoum to exhibit in the Revisit format – an exhibition format that allowed the museum to reconnect with artists whose works are in the museum’s collection.
In the exhibition Mona Hatoum – Revisit, the revisit was present as an exhibition format, but was also evident in Mona Hatoum’s own working method. As a starting point for the exhibition, Hatoum chose three of her previous works from Magasin III’s collection (Quarters, 1996; Vicious Circle, 1999; Nature morte aux grenades, 2006–2007). The first part of the exhibition also presented the extensive archival work Performance Documents, 1980–1987/2013, which provided an introduction to Hatoum’s early performative practice and how it clearly related to her later work in sculpture, video, and installation.
For the exhibition, Mona Hatoum created the work Electrified (variable IV), 2022 – an installation that connected to an experimentation with kitchen utensils and electricity that has been present in her work since the 1970s. The sculpture consisted of a number of household objects. Kitchen utensils such as chairs and scissors were carefully selected and linked together in an extensive sculpture that hung down from the ceiling. Through the metal in the interconnected objects, electricity was conducted to a light bulb that hung low above the floor. The electric current fluctuated, like a pulsating force, giving the objects life while forming a potentially life-threatening circuit.
The sculpture, which seemed playful and whose objects could be associated with the home environment, had been transformed into a subdued threatening object through its ability to conduct electricity. Hatoum created a version of this sculpture as early as 1979, as she began to explore installations that bordered artistic and technological experiments.
The joint planning of the exhibition began in 2020, during a time marked by Covid-19 and all the restrictions that followed the outbreak of the pandemic. Together with Mona Hatoum, we had envisioned a work process that would largely take place locally, on site in Frihamnen. That plan, of course, had to be changed abruptly as society increasingly shut down during the then-prevailing pandemic. We had time to jointly begin the exhibition planning together in London before the national restrictions made it impossible to travel. This was also the reason why we finally had to do the installation of the exhibition with Mona Hatoum present via link. Installing without having the artist physically present was of course not what I had imagined or wished for, but it became interesting and heartfelt in a way I had not expected. It required good communication and mutual trust. I was struck by how well Mona Hatoum knew her works, how she – despite her physical absence – was always keen to understand how the works took place from different angles, light, in relation to the room, each other and not least to the viewer. She not only had total knowledge of the works we were installing, but also remembered the exhibition space so exactly that it was dizzying to think that she had been there eighteen years earlier.
Olga Krzeszowiec Malmsten, Curator for Mona Hatoum – Revisit, October, 2024
