When did modern art end and contemporary art begin in the Arab world? Sultan Al Qassemi tackles the question in an essay on Medium. Rather than assigning a specific date or year, Al Qassemi proposes that “Arab contemporary art timeframe begins with artists who have come of age in the decade between the early 1980s and the early 1990s due to their general readiness to adopt the latest technologies and concepts in their work.” He pinpoints one artist that best embodies that specification: Beirut-born British-Palestinian artist Mona Hatoum. Just as American philosopher Arthur Danto was “shocked” when he first visited an Andy Warhol exhibition in 1964 as he claimed that “[Warhol’s Brillo boxes] could not have been art fifty years ago. The world has to be ready for certain things,” Hatoum shocked the world, Al Qassemi says. She “not only was the Arab world not ready for Hatoum, the Western world itself, where museums typically showed far less works by female artists was coming to grips with this strong woman and who transcends boundaries and conventions… In Hatoum’s ascent to global art phenomenon, she has transcended the constricting labels of her ethnic and gender identities.”

…If you’re interested in more of her work, London’s Tate Modern is currently running a Mona Hatoum exhibition until 21 August. Tate Modern says Hatoum’s work “creates a challenging vision of our world, exposing its contradictions and complexities, often making the familiar uncanny. Through the juxtaposition of opposites such as beauty and horror, she engages us in conflicting emotions of desire and revulsion, fear and fascination.” Can’t make the trip to London? You can also watch Hatoum’s heartfelt 1988 videotape Measures of Distance, in which she examines her position as an exiled female artist, translating letters from her mother from Arabic to English, represented visually as a texture of calligraphy over the texture of her body and skin. (Runtime 07:17)