Last chance to see: Mona Hatoum at the Whitechapel Gallery

The Whitechapel Gallery in London is offering a chance to see the renowned British-Palestinian artist Mona Hatoum’s installation Current Disturbance for the first time in the UK (until 6 March).

The room-filling, multi-sensory installation is constructed from stacked wire cages and light bulbs, which light-up and fade intermittently, illuminating the room in a sombre glow and making visible the threatening mounds of wire that lace the gallery floor. The sounds of electrical currents fill the room at arrhythmic intervals, adding to the sense of oppression and disorientation that Hatoum inflicts upon the viewers. “You walk in and you’re assaulted by the sound,” she says.

Current Disturbance is simultaneously alluring and threatening, rigid in its grid-like structure yet corporeal in its connotations of human torture. Its sense of claustrophobia and discomfort was influenced by urban architecture and the modern city, and the surveillance techniques that control it.

This installation is the third in a series of four micro-exhibitions at the Whitechapel entitled Keeping it Real: an Exhibition in 4 Acts, featuring more than 60 key works from the Dimitris Daskalopoulos Collection. Each “act” explores the meaning of materials and features works from prominent 20th century artists such as Marcel Duchamp, Louise Bourgeois, Marina Abramovic and Gabriel Orozco.

Follow the link to Art Observed to find out more about this installation and Hatoum's practice