Make-Up

Adad Hannah’s videos of frozen figures appear at first to be stills, but upon closer inspection reveal themselves to be actors holding extended poses. Recent works have included mirrors, such as a still of a woman applying make-up in a mirror. The uneasy arrangement of mirrors, set up with a Hitchcockian eye, intensifies the engagement with the subject of being an object. In a nod to Dan Graham’s groundbreaking work, Hannah will create a new video for the exhibition in which he restages Performer/Audience/Mirror thus creating a mirror of this historical moment that brings into question our understanding of Graham’s earlier critique.

Let Me Be Your Mirror takes the straightforward idea of art as a “mirror on the world” and turns it on itself by introducing the one thing that can never be adequately represented, a mirror. In the process, the viewer’s position before mirrors, both real and represented, is placed in question as part of a larger inquiry into social structures that govern desire and its production. This exhibition, which launched the MacKenzie’s “Mirror Series,” is the first of three exhibitions dealing with mimetic structures. The second exhibition, tentatively titled Double Take will explore the use of doubled or mirrored projections, while the third in the series, tentatively titled My Evil Twin will explore the use of doubles and doppelgangers.

From http://www.mackenzieartgallery.ca/engage/exhibitions/let-me-be-your-mirror

This project has been presented in the following exhibitions:

2010, Peinture de genre comme figure de Still, Musée d'art contemporain des Laurentides, Quebec. 
         Curated by Éloi Desjardins. Catalog produced.
2008, Adad Hannah: Reflections, Pierre-François Ouellette art contemporain, Montréal.
2008, Let me be your Mirror, MacKenzie Art Gallery, Regina. Curated by Timothy Long.
2004, Regarder, Observer, Surveiller, Séquence, Chicoutimi. Curated by Nicole Gingras.