Reza Aramesh works across sculpture, drawing, embroidery, ceramics, video, and
performance, often presented as a sequence of Actions. Responding to media coverage of
international conflicts from the mid-20th century to the present, he translates these fleeting
images into sculptural form, most often in marble. Collaborating with non-professional
models, Aramesh stages reenactments of selected source material. In their transformation,
direct traces of war disappear, leaving figures displaced from their original contexts and
generating a charged tension between beauty and brutality, one that exposes the futility of
violence while questioning how conflict is represented. Situating these scenes within the
traditions of Western art history, Aramesh critically examines the representation of the
male body through the intersecting lenses of race, class, and sexuality.
For Frieze 2025, Dastan Gallery presents three marble sculptures from the series Site of
the Fall - Study of the Renaissance Garden and Study of the Sweatcloth as an Object of
Desire. In Study of Sweatcloth, Aramesh renders life-sized men’s underwear in Carrara
marble, scattered across the floor like abandoned relics. Removed from the body, the
undergarment becomes a powerful symbol, at once a prisoner’s final fragment of dignity, a
marker of autonomy, and a sign of its erasure. The absent body underscores the body’s
role as a political site of violence and subjugation. By carving these modest garments in
marble, a material historically tied to ideals of power, beauty, and permanence, Aramesh
elevates overlooked lives erased by modern warfare and terror.
As art historian Dr. Julia Freedman observes in her essay The Meta of Marble:
Aramesh translates transient depictions of cruelty into precious and permanent sculptures,
turning raw images of violence into enduring monuments.