March 6, 2024 (Venice) - MUNTREF, Buenos Aires and Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami
announce the solo exhibition NUMBER 207 by Reza Aramesh at Chiesa di San Fantin. The
New York-based curator Serubiri Moses will present 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. Coinciding with the 60th International Art Exhibition of La
Biennale di Venezia curated by Adriano Pedrosa, Foreigners Everywhere, this exhibition was
made possible in collaboration with the Diocesi Patriarcato di Venezia, Dastan Art Gallery, and
Stjarna.art. NUMBER 207 will be on view from April 16 – October 2, 2024, with a Press Preview
held on April 16th at 2pm. For more information, please visit www.number207venice.com.

NUMBER 207 will present three groups of ongoing 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, contains 207 life-sized, discarded men's underwear
carved from Carrara marble and dispersed in formation across the floor of the church. Stripped
of the body, the humble undergarment represents the prisoner’s last material shred of dignity
and bodily autonomy as a testament to their personhood and as a signifier of its subsequent
loss. In highlighting the gradual absence of the body, the discarded underwear effectively draw
attention to the body as a political site for acts of violence and subjugation. Carving them in
marble – a medium typically reserved for subjects of veneration or power – Aramesh imparts a
sense of material permanence and integrity upon 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.
Each work by Aramesh references archival, war reportage imagery of detention centers from
the mid-20th century to the present; the exhibition’s curation and installation respond to the
history of the site itself as the home of the Order of San Fantin, a post-medieval ecclesiastical
order that housed and ministered to the condemned as they awaited execution. The specificity
of the artist’s modern source imagery is rendered universal by the overwhelming reality of war
and conflict as an enduring facet of the human condition. In NUMBER 207, Chiesa di San
Fantin’s own centuries-long historical context of punishment and reformation meets Aramesh’s
imagery of present-day captives and their torture in a compelling appeal to humanity and its
precarious balance between empathy and cruelty.Says curator Serubiri Moses: We are looking forward to presenting the works of Reza Aramesh, whose exhibition NUMBER 207 positions the artist’s new body of marble sculptures –
based on the accumulation of “Actions” – in a dialogue with the exhibition site, the Chiesa di
San Fantin in San Marco founded in the 10th century with building renovations in the 15th

century, and its medieval ecclesiastical architecture. We are also interested in the fact that the
Order of San Fantin comforted the condemned before their execution, which has a
contemporary relevance to Aramesh’s body of sculptures and previous photographic works.
Says artist Reza Aramesh: The works presented at the Chiesa di San Fantin are from several
ongoing series that I have chosen to call “Actions”, since 2002. My aim for this exhibition is to
invite a conversation between the existing structure of the church and what it represents, to
reveal new and unexpected pairings with my work. Since the beginning of my practice over
twenty years ago, I have focused on reportage imagery, mostly drawn from conflicts around the
world and to transform them into sculptural shapes depicted through Western European art
history. The figures that I conjure speak of powerlessness, and I am interested in how an
audience may reflect on this condition when they have a choice to decide if their views could
be cruel or empathetic.
The Order of San Fantin operated within Chiesa di San Fantin in the post-medieval period. As
was commonly practiced during that time, executions were carried out in the Christian and
colonial societies. Prior to taking the condemned to their execution, which historians inform us
existed at several points in Venice, the Order of San Fantin comforted the condemned and
housed them within the church. From post-medieval accounts, the Order wore black robes and
their appearance was somber. This historical context provides much relevance and resonance
with Reza Aramesh’s sculptures which deal with the brutality of the human condition.
NUMBER 207 will be accompanied by two SKIRA Editore publications – an exhibition
catalogue and curatorial essay by Serubiri Moses, and a catalogue raisonné entitled “Action: by
Number” edited by Serubiri Moses with contributions from Mitra Abbaspour, Geraldine A.
Johnson, Julia Friedman, and Storm Janse van Rensburg, and distributed by Thames &
Hudson and UTA worldwide.