Eros and Aphrodite

A young man and a young woman embrace on either side of the twinned heads of two divinities of Greek mythology, Aphrodite and her son, Eros (Roman copies, about 35 B.C.E., Prado Museum, Madrid). Aphrodite is the goddess of love, and Eros incarnates beauty, love, pleasure and procreation. Adad Hannah depicts the ultimate fantasy – kissing two of the most desirable deities of Olympus – re-imagining the universal dream of sculptures coming to life. His interpretations of ancient sculpture link the present and the past in an image that combines the classical ideal of beauty with the concept of gender. Hannah’s artistic practice revitalizes the nineteenth-century tradition of tableaux vivants.