Much of the Barbican Centre seems to be below ground level, somewhat like a well-appointed bomb shelter. After getting lost in a subterranean corner of B2 called The Pit, the exhibition space of Encounters: Giacometti x Mona Hatoum is an almost Alpine world of light and altitude. Unlike the Barbican’s post-war palette of grey, with splashes of watery green, the world of Giacometti and Mona Hatoum is all about contrast — in invigorating monochrome.
Despite the huge gulf between the two artists, they have much in common. Death is all around, as is hope for peace. Both sculptors have taken a keen interest in the subject. Giacometti died young in 1966, while Hatoum is a vigorous 73 years old. Unlike the Swiss sculptor, who grew up in a notoriously peaceful and — according to Orson Welles in The Third Man — uncreative place that produced cuckoo clocks, Mona Hatoum has Palestinian roots. She also lived in Brixton at a time when it was far from the comparative serenity that now prevails there.
