Reza Armesh, Action 97. Algerian civilians suspected of being terrorists are searched and put on trucks to be taken to the interrogation cells,Algiers 1956, 2011, Photographic triptych.

Reza Armesh, Action 44: Baghdad September 10th, 2004, 2009, Black and white silver gelatin print, 124 x 157 cm.

Reza Armesh, Action 64: Vietcong Prisoner Gagged and Blindfolded. November 26th, 1965, 2009, Black and white silver gelatin print, 2009. 158 x 124 cm.

Reza Armesh, from Walking In The Darkness Of A Promised Light.

Gallery Isabelle van den Eynde
Al Quoz 1, street 8, Al Serkal Avenue, # 17
+ 97 1 (0)4 323 5052
Dubai
Reza Aramesh.
Walking In The Darkness Of A Promised Light
March 15-May 06, 2011

Walking In The Darkness Of A Promised Light by Reza Aramesh features four new photographic images and five new sculptures. As well as his solo show at Gallery IVDE, Aramesh is also exhibiting a major new work at the gallery’s booth at Art Dubai, between March 16-19.

This exhibition is Reza Aramesh’s second solo presentation at the gallery, following his 2009 show, Between The Eye And The Object Falls A Shadow which was widely acclaimed for its dramatic, yet thought-provoking, representations of prisoners, arranged in tableaux based on contemporary war reportage, recreated amidst the opulence of castles, palaces and stately homes. The peculiarly arresting impressions created by Aramesh served to foreground his ongoing investigations into portrayals of conflict, wealth, religion, culture and oppression — themes to which he returns in this new show at Gallery Isabelle van den Eynde.

Drawing on influences as varied as 17th century religious iconography, classic Iranian and European arthouse cinema, Renaissance-era painting and sculpture and contemporary news reportage, Walking In The Darkness Of A Promised Light brings to life the inner realities excavated through Aramesh’s diverse techniques. In this new body of work, the artist positions himself centrally, amidst the swirling cross-currents of global information flow and relentless supply and demand of media imagery from across the world. Reflecting on the manner in which news media casts victims of suffering and conflict into pre-ordained clichés, he asks us to investigate anew, our own value systems and moral responses to those who wield power and influence, as well as those who suffer and sacrifice themselves. In evoking the transcendental attitude of figures in devotional paintings and sculptures from the past (clearly referencing traditional Catholic and Islamic tropes) Aramesh recontextualises his subjects in a new light that serves to invite our full engagement and moral re-assessment.

Building on the themes explored in Between The Eye And The Object Falls A Shadow, this exhibition presents a new series of photographs, presented as triptychs and diptychs, as well as five sculptures that employ traditional 17th century polychromatic, marquetry and wood-carving techniques. The triptych is a form usually found in Christian art, invoking the fundamental Trinity concept. Aramesh is inspired by devotional art, especially the forms that evoked suffering and martyrdom in saintly figures and he brings this beguiling context to his present-day subjects, throwing open the debate as to whether the young men captured and killed in contemporary theatres of war are also saints or martyrs of a modern age. This is the style in which Aramesh draws on in the 21st century, to re-invent today’s sainted figures — hero-victims of war and global unrest.

Aramesh stages recreations of events found in newspapers and television reports from images of war across the world. Continuing his methodology, the sculptures and photographs are titled numerically as "Actions," and at half and three-quarter life-sized, feature captive figures drawn from images of prisoners, humiliated and bowed. The striking juxtaposition of the meticulously-crafted marquetry on the plinths, evocative of the geometric intricacy of palatial floors with the figures of terrified, victimized men, is haunting.

The artist has experimented throughout his career with creating staged tableaux within dramatic surroundings, from arranging groups of homeless people within Tate Britain in London to staging a re-enactment of the traditional Changing Of The Guards in London’s Trafalgar Square, using immigrant men in place of the Queen’s guardsmen.

The series of photographs in this show document recreations of scenes drawn from the media, of tragedies and war — transposed to the glory and splendour of stately homes and palaces, including the Armourers & Brasiers hall in London and the Musee Rodin in Paris. The implications are clear, yet complex. In drawing out links between wealth, power, violence and conflict and in the extreme contrasts, highlighted in aesthetic terms through stark monochromes through to the ideological fabric of the work, Aramesh brings the power of religious iconography to bear on the anonymous faces and forms of those who continue to die today, in the name of dogma and blind ambition. In his sensitive, still, yet powerful works, Reza Aramesh explores the moral universes between the suffering and saintliness that we, as humans, are capable of.

Reza Armesh, from the series Between the eye and the object falls the shadow ...

Reza Armesh, Action 46: Palestinian prisoners sit blindfolded on the ground after they were captured by Israeli soldiers. February 17, 2008, at the Kerem Shalom base, 2009.

Reza Aramesh, Action 51. Kerem Shalom, Israel, February 17, 2008. Palestinian prisoners sit blindfolded on the ground after they were capture by Israeli soldiers, 2008, Black and white, silver, gelatin, print,124 x 157cm, Ed. of 3.

B21 Gallery
52182, Al Quoz 3
Dubai
+971 4 340 39 65
Reza Aramesh
Between the Eye and the Object falls a Shadow …
April 14-May 5, 2009

Conflict is the material from which Reza Aramesh crafts his work. Such conflict may reside in social rejection or alienation, in the uncomprehending meeting of cultures, in the affirmation of discordant stereotypes, in the imposition of gender roles, in recourse to armed violence. Aramesh's work is not autobiographical by intention or in fact, nor does it provide a visual history of conflict. Rather, his pieces draw on recent history, as reported by the media and filtered through an individual sensibility, to make palpable the tensions, contradictions and overt or implicit violence that are ubiquitous in the world of the early 21st century.

Aramesh was born in Iran and is working in London. After studying Chemistry he obtained a Masters Degree in Fine Art at Goldsmith's College, London , first turning his attention to painting and text pieces. Since 2001 he is engaged in a series of works which he refers to as Actions. He sets up scenarios or devises events that may or may not be witnessed by audiences, and which in all cases survive as still photographs or multi-screen video projections.

The current exhibition is devoted to Aramesh's most recent series of works, begun in 2008 and collectively bearing a title Between the eye and the object falls a shadow … Western art history provides the point of departure as Aramesh comprehends these photographic works as an extension of the Disasters of War by Francisco de Goya created in the 1810s. Goya's aquatint prints form a caesura in the history of the depiction of war. In some of his most extreme sheets, Goya creates compositions from mutilated bodies and body parts more akin to the animal carcasses in seventeenth-century still life painting than to the explorations of the narrative and pictorial potential of warfare as they are common in the history of art.

The photographic tableaux created by Aramesh are akin to Goya's sheets in that specific narrative content is drained from them, but they differ from most of Goya's prints in minimizing references to motion being performed, violence being perpetrated as we look. There are no weapons, nor are there any instruments of torture or confinement. We do not witness aggression, we observe characters frozen in their respective gestures, of oppressor, of oppressed, by situations of conflict. His photographs display a stillness commonly associated with still life painting .

Aramesh's scenarios are staged indoors, in homes ranging from affluent modern apartments to lavish historical mansions. The suggestion that wealth and financial interests are fundamentally intertwined with warfare is thus a common feature of all works of this series.

His photographs are based on imagery provided by news agencies, sourced from daily papers and the internet. Each photograph bears as its individual title the caption of its photographic source, from which the artist chooses some figures and make some compositional decisions. Nonetheless the image appears subtly but significantly transformed, first and foremost by the lavish setting. Furthermore, the characters, of different ages in the source image, are now young men of approximately the same age. All participants wear casual street clothing which, in the case of the two "guards", replaces their uniforms. None of the "guards" holds a gun, and the "captives" are no longer blindfolded, creating a tension between the words of the title and the image. Whilst the positions of the ‘guards' show few modifications, all the "prisoners" in the final version are given more erect postures, imbuing their act of submission with energy and urgency.

Reza Aramesh's work has had solo exhibitions in London 's Platform Gallery (2002), Lawrence O'Hana Gallery (2004), Mathew Bown Gallery (2007), Zoo Art Fair (2008). His group shows include Into Position in Vienna and Metropolis Rise in Beijing (2006), Making a Scene in Haifa Museum of Art in Israel (2006), The Politics of Fear at the Albion Gallery, London (2007), and the Best of Discoveries at ShContemporary 08.

— Adapted from catalogue introduction by Thomas Frangenberg