Palestinian artist Mona Hatoum, who was born in Beirut, Lebanon and presently resides in the United Kingdom will blow you away. The behemoth steel arm atop a bed of sand,within an open 13 feet in diameter by 27 cm. high, steel vessel; would almost take up a quarter of the room. It is a large scale expression of her 1979 moving sculpture "Self-Erasing Drawing". The steel arms are toothed on one side making ridge marks on the sand and the opposite side imitates a spatula which will eventually smooth out dent lines made by the other. This kinetic work of Hatoum moves at a rate of five rotations per minute. It is a show stopper given the enormity of its presence. Yet, there is more to what it pronounces. The slow and even shifts of the blades, the linear-curving marks and erasure it leaves on the sand and the liberty of any embellishment in Hatoum's work---simple. The convergence of ideas bullet from all direction as one perturbs motionless, facing "Plus and Minus" and its hypnotic glory. Think of cliche's..nothing is permanent in this world except change or there is a time for everything even how people constantly migrate and would delineate from the static and immobile. Despite the discourse of events that happen to human strife and the natural, there remains the balance of things. Very human; spoken willfully from the inanimate.
Mona Hatoum's work is a new acquisition of New York's MOMA (Museum of Modern Art) from August 2006 till April 9, 2007 in the OUT OF TIME: A CONTEMPORARY VIEW exhibit. To see a video of her work visit www.theflounders.multiply.com
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