Mona Hatoum - Over, under and in between at Fondazione Prada
Published on 08/29/2026 at 15:27 | Editorial responsibility: Rafael Müller, Editor-in-Chief AD HOC NEWS
Mona Hatoum anchors Fondazione Prada’s 2026 program in Milan with her site-specific project Over, under and in between. As the White Cube museum exhibition news notes, the presentation runs in the Cisterna building from January 29 to November 9, 2026. White Cube exhibition announcement
The Cisterna project in Milan
The Fondazione Prada project unfolds in three towering chambers of the Cisterna, a former distillery structure first built in 1909, which Hatoum reactivates through large-scale installations. The museum building’s industrial architecture becomes an active part of the works’ spatial choreography.
Two installations, Web (2026) and Map (red) (2026), were conceived specifically for this venue, taking the high ledges and open floor as starting points for hanging and ground-level interventions. In addition, the kinetic sculpture all of a quiver (2022) introduces a perpetually buckling aluminium frame that oscillates between collapse and reconstruction.
Work series and retrospective arc
In Web, thousands of hand-blown glass spheres are suspended to form a monumental web structure, registering both protection and threat as the beaded constellation hovers over visitors. The work extends Hatoum’s long-standing interest in grids and nets that organize, and unsettle, bodily experience.
Map (red) renders a full world map on the floor from around thirty thousand loose glass spheres, using the Gall-Peters equal-area projection instead of the Eurocentric Mercator standard. This continues Hatoum’s recurrent map series from the mid-1990s, where cartographic order is undermined by unstable materials and shifting borders.
All news and background on Mona Hatoum
Further coverage on Mona Hatoum’s exhibitions, commissions and biennial appearances is available in the AD HOC NEWS archive, from institutional retrospectives to current Milan and Jeju projects.
The work core and fragile bodies
Hatoum’s work consistently addresses instability, precarity and the fragility of human bodies within political and architectural systems, often through familiar domestic or structural forms made disquieting by material change. In Milan, this approach translates into large-scale spatial fields that leave visitors with few secure points of balance.
A constellation of glass spheres above and a loose world map underfoot create a layered choreography of risk, while the perpetually shifting aluminium lattice of all of a quiver evokes damaged infrastructure and unstable institutions. Against this backdrop, the Cisterna project reads as an extended chapter in Hatoum’s exploration of fragile structures, both physical and geopolitical.
Where the artist stands now
Within the 30-day window, Mona Hatoum’s most recent major presentation remains Over, under and in between at Fondazione Prada’s Cisterna in Milan, open through November 9, 2026.
Key facts on Mona Hatoum
- Artist: Mona Hatoum
- Medium / Genre: Installation, sculpture and video (conceptual)
- Born: 1952, Beirut, Lebanon
- Place(s) of practice: Studio in London
- Active since: Early 1980s, with performances and installations following her studies at the Slade School of Fine Art
- Key work groups: Measures of Distance, Corps étranger, Homebound, Map series
- Current/last exhibition: Over, under and in between, Fondazione Prada, Milan, January 29 – November 9, 2026
- Major collections: Tate (London), MoMA (New York), Centre Pompidou (Paris), Guggenheim (New York), Nationalgalerie (Berlin)
- Awards: Honorary doctorates and international prizes including the 2011 Joan Miró Prize and the 2016 Hiroshima Art Prize
- Next date: Exhibition run of Over, under and in between at Fondazione Prada, Milan, continuing to November 9, 2026
Frequently asked questions about Mona Hatoum
Where can I see Mona Hatoum’s work in 2026?
In 2026 Mona Hatoum’s major installation project Over, under and in between occupies Fondazione Prada’s Cisterna in Milan from January 29 to November 9, 2026, with three large-scale works responding to the building’s architecture.
What are the key installations in Over, under and in between?
The exhibition centers on Web (2026), a suspended constellation of glass spheres, Map (red) (2026), a floor-based world map of loose glass beads, and all of a quiver (2022), a kinetic aluminium lattice that continually buckles and straightens.
How does Over, under and in between relate to Hatoum’s wider practice?
The project extends Hatoum’s recurring use of maps, grids and domestic forms to probe instability and power structures, building on earlier works such as her map series and large-scale installations that place viewers in physically precarious situations.
This article was produced with a.i. support and editorially reviewed. All statements without guarantee; auction results, exhibition dates and awards may change at short notice.
