Simon Periton’s collections of anecdotes have always seemed seriously to question the viable limits of the idea of inconsequentiality, inconsistency, and gracelessness as an important way forward for art in England. The esthetic is more about terms of endearment than qualities of engrossment. For example, one is confronted with the little arty-thing, unrelentingly coy and opaque (Untitled; Eggs, size I; all works 1992); the frosty prop in the theater of stupefaction (Can’t see the wood for the trees); and the souvenir of an enfeebled dandyism (Don’t you ever get the feeling you’re going round

A concern with communication is at the center of Mona Hatoum’s work. By this I do not mean that it reveals a generalized problem of expression, a certain inadequacy and futility in getting a message across, a mismatch between intention and outcome. This inevitable failure is there, too, but what has preoccupied Hatoum are the more immediate, socially determined factors that affect communicative possibility: the politics and economics of expression that vitiate it. Communication can often signify the possession and exercise of power. In that context the decision by those without such power to