Mona Hatoum's "Hot Spot" at The Tate Modern

 Mona Hatoum's "Hot Spot" , stainless steel and neon tube, Artist's Edition 2013

Following the installation of Mona Hatoum's "Hot Spot", at the  Centre Pomidou last year, her retrospective exhibition covering 35 years, has now moved to the Tate Modern in London where once again myself and Pete spent three days in mid April, slowly attaching the forty seven neon sections and wiring up the ten transformers.

"Hot Spot" is one of 88 exhibits that are on show until 21st August 2016, after which it will be travelling to the Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki. Get down there and have a look.

Mona Hatoum's Hot Spot at the Goetz Collection Munich

Mona Hatoum's, Hot Spot , 2009, neon and stainless steel

I've recently returned from 3 days in Munich, having been asked by The Goetz Collection, an internationally renowned, private collection of contemporary art, to assemble Mona Hatoum's Hot Spot for an exhibition of her work beginning in November. The collection is owned and continuely added to by, the former gallery dealer, Ingvild Goetz who presents the collection to the public in a series of themed exhibitions in a purpose built museum, designed by the Swiss architectural firm of Herzog and de Meuron in 1993.

Peter Head, neon fitter extrodinaire, working somewhere in the Philippines

Originally commissioned in 2009 for an exhibition in the Fondazione Querini Stampalia at the Venice Biennale,  the piece comprises 48 sections of 8mm clear tubing filled with neon gas. Each piece was initially bent in two dimensions,using a full size drawing as a template and was then bent again into three dimensions to fit the curvature of the globe. 

 

The tubing is lit by 10 transformers producing 95000 volts and running at 18m/A. The tubing is attached to the frame with nylon fishing twine and is cushioned on a bed of silicon sleeves. The H.T.cables drop straight down from the electrodes to the transformers housed in the base.


 

Mona Hatoum's Undercurrent

The exhibition also includes the work “Undercurrent”, a beautiful and intricate mixed media extravaganza comprised of cloth covered electric cable, lightbulbs and a dimmer device allowing the lightbulbs to "breathe" . Other pieces include several of Mona's early video installations as well as "Paravent" or "Grater Divide" and "Slicer".

The exhibition runs from 21st November 2011 - 5th April 2012 at The Goetz Collection, Oberföhringer Straße 103,  D - 81925 Munich.  Tel. +49 - 89 - 95 93 96 9 - 0

More information about Mona Hatoum is available at here at Artsy


Major Contemporary Art Exhibition - Hope

If you're holidaying in France this summer then a trip to Dinard, in Brittany, has got to be on your itinery. Not only will you be able to enjoy their spectaclar rocky coastline, with it's beautiful bays and sandy beaches, you can also marvel at the major contempory art exhibition commisioned and run by the town of Dinard.

The exhibition Hope, is being held at Dinard's Palais des Arts et du Festival, from June 12th. - September 12th. 2010 and comprises 50 works from 50 artists from all over the world chosen by curator Ashok Adiceam.

This is an exceptional show with some fantastic works of art most importantly of all, the three neon pieces, Mona Hatoum's Hot Spot 2006, Jean-Michel Alberola's Esperance and Claude Leveque's Revez! 2008. Neon Neon were originally comissioned to produce and install the neon for Mona Hatoum's Hot Spot back in 2006 when it was shown at the White Cube's then new gallery at Mason's Yard, London SW1. Made from 8mm clear glass and filled with neon gas, "Hot Spot" comprises 48 individual neon sections all bent 3 dimensionally to fit the contousr of the stainless steel globe. All 48 sections run off 10 transformers producing 95,000 volts in total. On loan from the David Robert's Foundation.

Other notable pieces include Do Ho Suh's Cause and Effect, 2007, a fantastic whirlwind of small brightly coloured plastic figures, Damien Hirst's This be the verse Mount Zion, 2006, a beautiful Gibert and George'esque butterfly montague and Alberto Giacometti's graceful and elegant L'homme qui marche, 1981.

Have a look at the catalouge here, well worth a trip to Dinard.