Darwin’s Turtle
176 Years Old, 2006, acrylic and oil on canvas, 180 x 200 cm
“With a slightly ironical distance, Adach approaches the recent attempt of some of our pseudo-politicians to undermine the Neo-Darwin theory of evolution. One of the paintings: 176 Years Old, features the head of a 176-year old female tortoise, allegedly brought from the Galapagos Islands by Darwin himself, which has recently died in an Australian Zoo. Another painting (DNA) shows a sculpture in form of a DNA helix sitting in the yard of a former Calmaldoli friars monastery in the Warsaw district of Bielany. The adjacent room accommodates a video with shots from the lives of chimpanzees in a Zoo, entitled The Primates Are Not Apes. This statement seems even more intriguing, considering the fact that the genetic difference between a human and a chimpanzee is only 0,6 per cent, while the difference between the chimpanzee and the orangutan is as much as 2 per cent.”
Ewa Gorzadek, “The Mirror Perspective”, in Adam Adach. Portraits. Mirrors, 2007
Primates, 2006, chimpanzee hand and footprints, gouache on paper, 5 elements, 100 x 70 cm.
Mascot, 2007, oil on canvas, 70 x 50 cm.