Nature Morte Aux Grenades 2007

Mona Hatoum created this installation, Nature Morte Aux Grenades, using hand-blown glass and steel. Hatoum's work often grapples with themes of displacement, the body, and sociopolitical conflict; as a Palestinian artist born in Beirut and living in London, these themes intertwine with her personal history. Here, the objects are displayed on what looks like a hospital gurney, an operating table, a surface usually reserved for human bodies. The colorful glass grenades, while beautiful, are a stark reminder of violence and fragility. "The vulnerability of the material is important, as is the fact that they are hand-blown, and that their perfection is deceptive," Hatoum says. The grenades sit silently, like specimens, forcing us to consider the violence and political turmoil so often obscured. Hatoum’s "Nature Morte" is a complex reflection on the way beauty and terror can coexist and the precariousness of existence in a world shaped by conflict.