Deep Throat

With her installation Deep Throat, artist Mona Hatoum takes the viewer on a journey inside the human body. The work consists of a chair at a white-clothed table set with a plate, cutlery, and a glass of water. A large opening in the centre of the plate reveals a monitor underneath that plays medical imagery of a gastroscopy and a colonoscopy. The endoscopic camera penetrates the gaping mouth, passes the teeth, and glides down the oesophagus, deeper and deeper into the digestive tract. Along the way, the viewer encounters mucous membranes and vessels, saliva, gastric juices, and partially digested food. It is at once violent and erotic, fascinating and disgusting. With the title Deep Throat, Hatoum references the classic porn film of the same name, in which the lead actress, Linda Lovelace, as a woman whose erogenous zone is not between her thighs, but rather, deep in her throat, is able to experience sexual pleasure only through oral sex. By merging these seemingly contradictory ideas – disgustand arousal – Hatoum takes aim at male sexual fantasies as well as the fear of the mythical ‘vagina dentata’, or toothed vagina, with the power to emasculate men.