SAN ANTONIO, TX.- The San Antonio Museum of Art is featuring works by internationally acclaimed Canadian artist Adad Hannah including an image commissioned by and created at the Museum. Addad is known for photographic and video works using or inspired by objects in museum collections. The idea for the exhibition emerged as SAMA’s curators set out to develop exhibitions that would echo the erotic overtones of the Museum’s main exhibition Aphrodite and the Gods of Love.

David S. Rubin, The Brown Foundation Curator of Contemporary Art, was inspired by Hannah’s video “Eros and Aphrodite,” which was produced in 2008 at the Prado Museum in Madrid. The film features a man and woman model leaning in to kiss the lips of the statue of Eros and Aphrodite. It spotlights Hannah’s distinct style known as tableau vivant (living picture), a staging of a work in which costumed models pose alongside paintings and sculptures and hold their positions for an extended period.

The new SAMA work by Hannah, ”Daydreams of the Drunken Scholar,” was staged in SAMA’s Contemporary Galleries. Local San Antonio artists served as models and Hannah decorated the set with objects from other cultures, including colorful fabrics from Japan, oriental rugs and Irish silver from SAMA’s collection. Although the setting is predominantly Asian, there is a classical European sensibility in the models’ poses that evokes art historical references such as Edouard Manet’s “Luncheon on the Grass.” “With its multiple bonding of bodies and mash-up of cultural details, Hannah suggests the idea that sensuality is a universal human attribute, common to all cultures past and present,” said Rubin.

Adad Hannah: Intimate Encounters is on view from September 1-December 30, 2012. The exhibition is part of 2012 FotoSeptiembreUSA, an international festival celebrating photography.