Mona Hatoum (born 1952)
Static Portraits (Cecilia, Chris, and Galen), 2000
A group of 3 unique large-format Polaroids; each mounted and framed, an Alexander and Bonin Gallery label on the reverse.
each approximately 24 1/8 x 21 in. (61.3 x 53.3 cm.)
each sheet 28 1/4 x 22 in. (71.8 x 55.9 cm.)
each mount 31 x 24 3/4 in. (78.7 x 62.9 cm.)

Footnotes:
Provenance
California College of Arts and Crafts Benefit Auction, 2003

Note
Mona Hatoum's Static Portrait photographs were made using a large-format Polaroid camera during the photographer's 2000 residency at MassArt, in Boston. Hatoum invited her subjects to hold a Van der Graaf generator, the resulting images comically portraying each individual with their hair on end. In a conversation with Christine van Assche, curator of Hatoum's 2015 survey at the Centre Pompidou, she discussed levity within her artistic practice. 'Humour has always played an important role in my work. I often combined it with a touch of Surrealism to contradict or deflate some of the serious issues. . . I am interested in Surrealism because I see it as a visualization of the contradictions and complexities that exist inside us and a way of making art out of one's inner reality rather than with the logic of our mind.'

These three unique, large-format Polaroids, each mounted to paperboard, are in generally excellent condition. The colors have thinned very slightly. As can be typical of large-format Polaroid prints, scattered fingerprints, droplets of indeterminate nature, and some superficial hairline surface scratches are visible when examined in raking light. All of the above are inherent to the Polaroid process and detract in no way from the overall fine appearance of these prints. Upon examination under raking light, some scattered pinpoint-sized matte deposits, possibly foxing, are visible in the upper and lower black margins and in some of the darker areas on the portrait of Cecilia. Sold framed.