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Here is Elsewhere
by Molly Booth

Mona Hatoum's MoMA: QNS exhibit Here is Elsewhere peels off the confines of beauty and perfection in order to discover truth, however ugly and sloppy such truth may be. This exhibit is part of the museum's Artist's Choice series, in which artists are invited to curate. Hatoum shows how her talent creates a deeper understanding of other's artwork, and how other's works relate to one another. Her selection of artists confronts the viewer with bold images of everyday objects. The unquantifiable and unjustifiable of everyday coerces the viewer into a simpler, more painful way of seeing. The works focus on truth of flesh, and truth of the meaninglessness of action.

The use of stark bodily images induces nausea in several of the artworks. Jeanne Dunning's Untitled with Food (1999) is the first of such pieces. It is a photograph of a seated naked middle-aged woman from the neck down. She has a gooey substance smeared on her chest and genital area. This photograph breaks down the objectification of women into its most basic form. Here, woman is depicted as she is, with sagging breasts, and unpleasant lines. As the title suggests, the substance covering her is food, although is not very appetizing. The photograph argues successfully that the notion of consumable women is absurd and revolting. Hatoum continues a tone of disgust with Cheryl Donegan's Head (1993). This is a three-minute video of a woman drinking from a leak in a container and spitting the liquid back into the top. In the process, her saliva-water sprays onto the walls around her. This video confronts the audience with human reality. Logically speaking, she is doing nothing that her body would not ordinarily do on its own when drinking water. However, because such bodily function is depicted out in the open, common sense tells the viewer that this is socially unacceptable. Like in Untitled with Food, the inside is once again unmasked, and the ordinary is revealed as grotesque. However, Head comes to the conclusion that such action is natural, whereas society has applied the food to the woman in Untitled with Food and such an act is conversely unnatural. Hatoum plays around with this theme again in placing body out of the context of humanity by showcasing Kiki Smith's Untitled (1987-1990). This artwork consists of twelve silvered water-jugs labeled as mucus, pus, saliva, urine, milt, tears, diarrhea, blood, oil, semen, vomit, and sweat, respectively. The contrast between the water jugs and their "contents" is unsettling. It is amazing how people do not want to see what is inside of themselves. By placing these three works in a relatively close proximity, Hatoum makes emphases the commonality of the artists' messages, and allows the works to converse with one another.

Hatoum does not only expose the viewers to the naked body, but she relentlessly barrages them with images of an empty society. Jane and Louise Wilson's striking Stasi City (1997) has a room to itself. It consists of four videos playing each one-room wall simultaneously. It emphasizes the struggles of isolated modern women. Two films on adjacent walls follow a woman as she wanders through a building with many rooms along a long corridor. Each room is clean, sparsely furnished and only contains a telephone. After viewing all the rooms, the woman travels through an elevator and reaches a central room with broken video monitoring equipment, a broken phone and tape recorder. This room is messy, and has paint-chips strewn about the floor. The other two videos depict a different woman, this one a house wife, in the same building, but she seems to be moved by invisible strings, which eventually lift her and later a giant cheese grater. The cheese grater falls, making a startling noise. The movements in this piece are accompanied by conveyer belt sound effects, creating a cold, precise tone. The film suggests that the machinery once in control of the housewife has broken, thus leading her to meaningless actions that are dressed up in their fluidity and delicacy. Big Brother is destroyed, but his world lives. This too is a truth that Hatoum exposes. These films, along with Untitled with Food, and Martha Rosler's Semiotics of the Kitchen (1975), add to a theme of feminism among the exhibits. Unfortunately, much of Jane and Louise Wilson's message is lost on most of the audience, who wander through Stasi City in a few seconds, rather than stay for the complete five-minute loop. It appears as if the viewers have no patience with the simplicity of the messages that Hatoum has showcased.

Hatoum also focuses on irrational actions. Two exhibits in particular demonstrate society's deviation from natural order. Felix Gonzalez-Torres' "Untitled" (Death by Gun) (1990) and David Wojnarowicz's Untitled (1990-91) both showcase the darker side of humanity, while demanding of the viewer some sort of explanation. Gonzalez-Torres' work consists of stack of photolithographs printed in black lying on the museum floor. Each has the faces of perhaps one hundred gun-violent victims, and the details of their deaths. The viewers are welcome to take one of the posters home. The sound of people rolling up human lives is haunting. The message is clear: everyone should carry part of the burden, if even by accepting that something is wrong. Wojnarowicz's work is similar but more assaulting. This Photostat composition consists of a picture of an innocent looking boy surrounded by text describing how his homosexually destroyed his life and robbed him of his dignity. The child's smiling face interrogates the viewer. This exhibit is one of a few touching on themes of homosexuality. After questioning the order of society in works such as Untitled with Food, and Stasi City, Wojnarowicz's Untitled forces the viewer to question himself as a possible source to society's unnatural illogical order.

Hatoum's exhibition proves to naysayers that modern art is not "irrelevant" or "meaningless." By taking away viewers' preconceived notions of meanings, Hatoum reveals a bare, complete reality. The viewers find themselves foreigners in their own environments. Here is elsewhere.