Mona Hatoum's Interior Landscape at Fondazione Querini Stampalia

Mona Hatoum's exhibition 'Interior Landscape' at the Fondazione Querini Stampalia in Venice features works that intertwine personal history with universal themes of conflict and displacement. The title piece occupies a tiny cell with a bed fitted with barbed wire springs; a keffiyeh on a chair, emblematic of the Palestinian cause, is revealed to be made of human hair. Other works like 'Impenetrable' initially appear minimalist but reveal violent forms of barbed wire cubes. The exhibition oscillates between the devastation of 'Witness' and the fear of global conflagration in 'Hot Spot III'. Hatoum, born in Beirut to Palestinian parents and based in London since 1975, uses simple yet powerful imagery to convey charged emotional states.