The Oxygen Art Centre is thrilled to be bringing the work of photographer and video artist Adad Hannah to Nelson this month for an exhibition of his project The Raft of Medusa (100 Mile House).
Hanna was born in New York in 1971, and spent his childhood in Israel and England. He moved to Vancouver in the early 1980s. Hannah has exhibited his work all over the world where it is collected by public institutions including the National Gallery of Canada. He has been long listed for the Sobey Art Award three times.
Oxygen Art Center will be showing both videos and photographic stills from Hannah’s re-enactment of French painter Theodore Gericault’s iconic painting The Raft of the Medusa (1818-1819). Gericault painting is considered a landmark work of the Romantic era were he bridges neoclassical ideology with the new-romantic vision of freedom. The painting captures a moment of hope and the reality of despair as castaways of the French shipwreck spot a ship on the horizon.
In 2009 Adad Hannah travelled to 100 Mile House, BC to remount the epic scene painted by Gericault in video and photograph form. In order to do this Hannah engaged the help of local high school students and community members to construct a tableau vivant or living picture of The Raft of Medusa. Typical of Hannah’s artistic practice, he creates a space for the viewer to question the framing of history and renew their perception of the institution of collecting and viewing art which is the legacy of our museum culture.
Come by and see the exhibition at Oxygen Art Centre (320 Vernon Street, alley entrance) from August 9 to 31. Hannah will be in attendance on opening night, August 9 from 7 to 9 p.m., and for his artist talk the following day, August 10 at 4 p.m.
As part of the Columbia Basin Tour Oxygen Art Centre will also be open both Saturday, August 10 and Sunday, August 11 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.