Mona Hatoum (b. 1952)

In these two rubbings on wax paper, Mona Hatoum renders the familiar uncanny. A colander and seven knife blades become abstract spider webs, their lines tracing the sharp, dangerous edges of these domestic objects. The wax paper, pinned at each corner like a fragile specimen, retains this tactile imprint, a testament to the violence implicit in everyday objects. Reminiscent of the techniques used by the Surrealists to turn the ordinary into the threatening and bizarre, Hatoum’s series of rubbings are a key part of her work, exhibited at her recent retrospective at Tate Modern, London, and with three more from this series in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York.