The newest Remai Modern exhibition was created with the help of University of Saskatchewan art students. 

Inspired by Pablo Picasso’s 1937 oil painting “Guernica,” “Guernica Remastered” opened at the Remai Modern on Oct. 9 and features the work of several contemporary artists. The exhibition is described by the gallery as a depiction of Picasso’s original piece as a model for current activist and political art. 

Adad Hannah, a Vancouver-residing artist, used everyday objects that he sourced second-hand to create one of the artworks in the exhibit. He stayed in Saskatoon for ten days to create the artwork, and during this time, five U of S students volunteered their help with the construction. The students each chose a section to work on and mounted the found objects using a projection of the original image as reference.

Atrayee Basu, an MFA student studying sculpture, volunteered with the project for the opportunity to learn from a professional artist using a media similar to hers. She says that the freedom that Hannah gave the volunteers working on the installation was the best part of the project.

“As a student, I was thinking, ‘Okay, maybe he’s going to instruct [you] and tell you to do it this way or that way’,” Basu said. “But it was not at all that.”

Basu also enjoyed collaborating with other students, as it differed from typical solo art, in which artists seek to showcase their individuality.

“For an artist, it’s not always easy to work with a group project … It was so fluid, so conversational, that it did not feel like it was a group project. It was like we [were] all just one,” Basusaid.

Another student who worked on the project, Louisa Ferguson, is studying for an MFA centered around ecologically restorative art. She also appreciated the teamwork of the project because it was “freeing.”

“[Hannah] kind of acted like the third eye, which is really important in the collaborative process,” Ferguson said. “That allows the other participants to get engaged in what they are particularly doing in that project, to get into the flow.”

Ferguson believes that the final artwork is especially unique because its outcome depended entirely on the individuality of the volunteers and the items they chose. She says this also lended a local quality to the art.

“I found it really interesting, stepping back from it and looking at it after the opening… It had, for me, such a Saskatchewan feel,” Ferguson said.

During a virtual talk hosted by Remai Modern on Oct. 16, Hannah explained the process behind his artwork.

“For me, the interesting part isn’t to make something that looks exactly like something else. The interesting part is to kind of make something that allows you to look at it and look also at the original in a different way, through a different lens,” Hannah said during the online talk.

Picasso painted the original three-by-seven metre “Guernica” after the destruction of the Spanish village Guernica by the German air force during the Spanish civil war. The greyscale painting depicts a violent scene of humans and animals suffering.

Hannah’s sculpture preserves the chaotic composition of the original painting. Key images, like a mother wailing over her dead child’s body, a wounded horse and a person trapped in a burning building, can still be seen in the mounted lampshades, baskets, clocks and other assorted items.

Hannah described how, while he could have chosen a more straight-forward medium for the “Guernica” recreation, such as painting, he found that the task of sourcing each component of the work in a short time frame added interest to the final product.

“In that kind of risk-taking, in that uncertainty, you have that friction, tenseness, creativity,” Hannah said. “To me, that’s what’s interesting. And to me, that’s what I find satisfying in the end.”

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Sandra LeBlanc | News Editor

Photos: Supplied by Stephanie McKay | Photographed by Carey Shaw