Now showing: Mona Hatoum | Inside Out

On Jan. 31, the exhibition Inside Out from Mona Hatoum officially opened and was immediately well attended. The exhibition features work from throughout the artist's career: from her performance videos from the 1980s to recent sculptures, installations and works on paper. This is the first major survey of the artist's work in the Netherlands.

Some initial reactions:

‘Very confrontational and impressive.’

‘Wonderful exhibition. Really a big name here just in our Amersfoort area.’

‘This makes me really quiet!‘

The title of the exhibition is taken from the work Inside Out(2019), a "globe" covered with a pattern reminiscent of intestines or brain lobes. Hatoum here sets up a contrast between the implied soft malleability of bodily forms and the object's earthy construction in hard concrete.

The globe is a recurring theme in Hatoum's work. Similarly, the exhibition includes the work Hot Spot (2013) on display, a large cage-like globe made of steel on which the continents are depicted in red neon. And globe Orbital III (2018) which is made of bent bars, punctuated by chunks of rubble and suggesting a world in a permanent state of destruction.

Second location the Elbow Church

For the Elleboogkerk in Amersfoort, Mona Hatoum created the newly commissioned installation Web (2025), a large-scale constellation of delicate, transparent glass spheres, threaded through wires to create the form of a spider’s web. Suspended overhead and extending to almost the entirety of the space, the seemingly precarious web appears both captivating and ominous. Web can be seen as a net coming at you from above, announcing an oppressive, threatening confinement, but at the same time can be experienced as a "home" or a place of safety.