In Mona Hatoum’s Art, a Warning for a Wobbling World

Inside a lofty gallery at the Fondazione Prada in Milan, Mona Hatoum’s exhibition "Over, Under and in Between" opened with a towering kinetic sculpture, "All of a Quiver," whose hinged aluminum beams sway and buckle like a collapsing scaffold, evoking cycles of creation and devastation.

Born and raised in Beirut to Palestinian parents and based in London after the outbreak of the Lebanese civil war, Hatoum has long explored themes of danger, displacement and surveillance, though she has resisted readings that reduce her work solely to the Palestinian experience.

The show pairs beauty with threat: "Map (Red)," made of more than 30,000 red glass marbles, spills beyond continental margins on a gallery floor, while a vast spider web strung with handblown glass orbs makes visitors feel like insects, physically unsettling viewers and inviting multiple narratives.

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