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Adad Hannah

Eros and Aphrodite
From the series "Prado Project"

Artist

Adad Hannah
Born in New York in 1971

Title

Eros and Aphrodite
From the series "Prado Project"

Date

2008

Materials

HD colour video, silent, 4/5

Dimensions

Running time: 7 min 18 s

Duration

Running time: 7 min 18 s

Credits

Purchase, Horsley and Annie Townsend Bequest, inv. 2019.185

Collection

Quebec and Canadian Art

A young man and a young woman embrace on either side of the twinned heads of two divinities of Greek mythology, Aphrodite and her son, Eros (Roman copies, about 35 B.C.E., Prado Museum, Madrid). Aphrodite is the goddess of love, and Eros incarnates beauty, love, pleasure and procreation. Adad Hannah depicts the ultimate fantasy – kissing two of the most desirable deities of Olympus – re-imagining the universal dream of sculptures coming to life. His interpretations of ancient sculpture link the present and the past in an image that combines the classical ideal of beauty with the concept of gender. Museums inspire the artist who juxtaposes people and artworks in interaction. Exploring the dichotomy between photography and video, through these silent and static shoots, he captures soundless and motionlessness “actors.” These silent and still videos provide an unsettling experience for viewers: we assume we are looking at photographs, but then we notice that the actors are breathing, twitching and blinking. Hannah’s artistic practice revitalizes the nineteenth-century tradition of tableaux vivants.

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