Mona Hatoum, Hot Spot III, 2009
Stainless steel, neon tube, 234 x 223 x 223 cm, Photo: Agostino Osio, Courtesy Fondazione Querini Stampalia, Venezia

Hot Spot is a cage-like steel globe, approximately the size of a person with arms stretched out, which tilts at the same angle as the earth. Using delicate red neon to outline the contours of the continents on its surface, the work buzzes with an intense energy, bathing its surroundings in a luminescent red glow. It is both mesmerising and seemingly dangerous. On the one hand it suggests that the whole world is a political hot spot caught up in conflict and unrest. It can also be seen as a reference to global warming, an impending concern.