Adad Hannah

Adad Hannah explores historically trenchant themes through elaborate bodies of work that include installation, video, and photography. Inspired by the historical practice of tableaux vivants (translated as “living pictures”), Hannah’s overall practice invokes the durational form of early cinema, while also making reference to early photography by mimicking paintings at a time when it was the very goal of photography to do so. Time occupies a prominent place in Hannah’s production, forged by a lasting interest in temporality and its complex relationship with photography and video. Hannah adds to this history by bridging, or blurring, the divide between the tableau in photography and its originating form as living, i.e., live picture. 

Biography

Adad Hannah was born in New York in 1971 and now lives and works in Vancouver, Canada. He has exhibited at the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec (2008), the Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal (2008), Zendai MoMA, Shanghai (2009), Ke Center for Contemporary Art (Shanghai 2008), the Vancouver Art Gallery (2007), the National Gallery of Canada (2011, 2006), Ikon Gallery (Birmingham 2006), the 4th Seoul International Media Art Biennale (2006), Casa Encendida (Madrid 2006) and Viper Basel (2004). In 2004 he won the Toronto Images Festival Installation/New Media Award, and the Bogdanka Poznanovic Award at Videomedeja 8. His work has been funded by the Canada Council for the Arts, the Conseil des Arts et des Lettres du Québec, the B.C Arts Council, the Vancouver Foundation/Contemporary Art Gallery, the Quebec Delegations and Canadian Embassies in Madrid, Seoul, and New York. He has produced works at museums including the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, the National Gallery of Canada, the Vancouver Art Gallery, the Rodin Gallery (Seoul), and the Prado Museum (Madrid).

Hannah’s work can be found in the collections of the National Gallery of Canada, Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, the Ke Center for Contemporary Art (Shanghai), the Zacheta National Gallery of Art (Warsaw), BMO Financial Group and the Royal Bank of Canada. He was artist in residence at Fonderie Darling in the Montreal Studios from 2006 to 2009. Adad Hannah is represented by Galerie Pierre François Ouellette PFOAC in Montreal.

Recent exhibitions

2021	Social Distancing Portraits, solo exhibition, Kelowna Art Gallery, Kelowna, CA Studio Portraits, solo exhibition, Equinox Gallery, Vancouver, CA Guernica Remastered, group exhibition, Remai Modern, Saskatoon, CA
2020	Glints and Reflections, solo exhibition, The Rooms, St. John’s, CA Image -> Sent, group exhibition, Centre Culturel Canadien, Paris, FR
2019	Glints and Reflections, solo exhibition, Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery, Kitchener, CA The 4th Bienal de Montevideo, group exhibition, Montevideo, UY