The New York-based curator Serubiri Moses presents the works of Iranian-born, British artist Aramesh in his first solo presentation in Venice. Aramesh was previously included in the Iranian pavilion of the 56th Venice Biennale.

The exhibition NUMBER 207 presents three groups of sculptural series created specifically in conversation with the architectural setting of Chiesa di San Fantin. The focal point of the installation, titled Study of Sweatcloth as an Object of Desire, contains 207 life-sized, discarded mens underwear carved from Carrara marble and dispersed across the floor of the church to achieve an illusion of scattered garments. Each work references archival, war reportage imagery of detention centers from the mid-20th century to the present. Carving them in marble, Aramesh attempts to preserve the integrity of invisible lives lost to modern acts of war and terror, transforming the appearance of these historical subjects into sculptural forms based on European art history and its hegemony of beauty in the service of power.

Aramesh’s meticulous sculpting in marble – a material typically reserved for subjects of veneration or power – is an act of dignifying the last material shred of dignity stripped from prisoners. The specificity of the artist’s source imagery is rendered universal by the overwhelming reality of war and conflict as an enduring facet of the human condition. In highlighting the absence of the body, the discarded underwear effectively draw attention to the body as a political site for acts of violence and conquest.