Portrait of a Gentleman

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Portrait of a gentleman, Adad Hannah — A naked man tries to touch a painting in a gallery, two individuals reach out to stop him.

Portrait of a gentleman is a video from the series Stills Made in Museums which stages the behavioral rules that derive from the strange constructs which "protect" and "exhibit" art. Museum Stills explores both extremes of this behaviour, from the over-identification and even psychological breakdown that can occur in front of works of art to the practiced performance of indifference in the interstitial stairways and corners of these colossal institutions. 

2002
Canada
3:11
Original language
No dialogue
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Credits

Director
Adad Hannah
Production
Adad Hannah

Technical information

Color
Color
Sound
No sound
Shooting format
MiniDV

Documentation

Further information

"In Portrait of A Gentleman, a naked man lunges across a fallen velvet rope barrier toward a painting (with the same title) - presumably to couple with the portrait - as two museum guards attempt to stop him. "There's a sustained moment that unfolds and brings to the fore the living presence of the model", Fisher said. "With tableaux vivant there is a narrative that is implied in the gestures, there is a past one can imagine leading up to this event and a future that follows", Drobnick added."

«Adad Hannah presents 19th-century Freeze-Frames at Saw Gallery»,
Ottawa Xpress, Ottawa (Septembre 12, 2002)
 

Keywords

Art, museum , Painting, Immobility, Nudity, Social class, Social identity, Psychology, Institutions, Laws, Rules,