Adad Hannah, The Raft of the Medusa (100 Mile House), 2009, HD video, 4 min. 47 sec. Courtesy of the artist.
Purloined Stories
David Buchan, Carole Condé + Karl Beveridge, Jakub Dolejš, Adad Hannah, Kent Monkman, Ho Tzu Nyen
April 27 – May 21, 2011
Doris McCarthy Gallery
On September 14, 2010, Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram published a photograph showing then-Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak preceding President Obama and three other world leaders walking through the White House, following the Mideast peace talks. The photograph passed through Egyptian media without criticism, but provoked international outrage after it was discovered to be a fabricated image. In fact, President Obama had been front-and-centre in the procession. After much international scrutiny, Al- Ahram newspaper's editor-in-chief lashed out at critics claiming that the “Photoshopped” version was only meant to illustrate Egypt's leading role in the Mideast peace process.
The practice of fabricating a reality to favour particular social and political interests has a long history. This is especially true in the art world, where artists construct portraits, worlds, and moments in history, and curators organize artworks, and construct vested narratives in museums. At a time when the world is instantaneously discovering hidden truths about leaders in power, Purloined Stories presents artists who revisit influential art historical images to question their apparent truths, and in some instances, present new or urgent contemporary perspectives.
