New public artwork by Adad Hannah

En français.

Artist Adad Hannah has unveiled plans for a new work that will grace the facade of the PERFORM Centre. | Photo by Zandy Mangold.

Internationally-renowned artist Adad Hannah has unveiled plans for Leap, a stunning new work that will grace the facade of the PERFORM Centre, currently under construction at Concordia University’s Loyola Campus (7200 Sherbrooke St. W.).

The PERFORM Centre will be a unique complex for health research, academic training and community service.

Leap is a large scale photo-based work on glass that eloquently conveys the mission of the PERFORM Centre. It depicts a series of human figures, reproduced in vivid colours, engaged in various physical activities. Fully two stories high, the work will be clearly visible from Sherbrooke St. but also from inside the building.

“This monumental work is a key addition to Concordia’s public art collection and to the Montreal landscape,” says Judith Woodsworth, President and Vice-Chancellor of Concordia University. “We are all the more proud that Adad Hannah – a Concordia graduate who is currently a doctoral student in our Fine Arts Faculty – is securing such major commissions in Canada and abroad.”

The artist's rendition of Leap. | Image courtesy of Adad Hannah Studio and Saia Barbarese Topouzanov Architectes.

Hannah’s past work involves the transformation of historical paintings and sculptures into videos and photographs, questioning the conventions and codes of these media. Leap is also a reinterpretation of a classic work.

“For this project, I drew on my research into Eadweard Muybridge’s studies of human motion,” Hannah explains. “Whereas Muybridge’s photographic sequences feature a single body frozen in stages of motion, for Leap I chose to use a group of 17 models who will soon be using the PERFORM Centre – professors, researchers, support staff, and clients – to represent the body in motion. In this way, I hope my work engages the community that will form around this new addition to Concordia.”

Image courtesy of Adad Hannah Studio and Saia Barbarese Topouzanov Architectes.

Two of Hannah’s installations are currently on exhibition at the Musée d’art contemporain de Montreal (through January 4, 2011) along with the other Quebec-based semi-finalists for this year’s Sobey Art Award. He was also featured in two public art projects as part of the Vancouver Cultural Olympiad 2010.

Hannah’s works can also be found in private, corporate and institutional collections around the world including Warsaw’s Zach?ta National Gallery of Art, Miami’s Mordes Collection, the National Gallery of Canada, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal and the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec. Hannah is represented by Pierre-François Ouellette art contemporain.

The creation of Leap is made possible by the Quebec government's Politique d'intégration des arts à l'architecture and adds to the 2010 initiative Montreal City of Glass.

Listen to coverage of the unveiling of plans for Adad Hannah’s Leap on CBC Radio’s Homerun, hosted by Sue Smith: