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Artist Talk | Reza Aramesh and the Baroque Continuum
Artist Talk | Reza Aramesh and the Baroque Continuum
The drama, theatricality, and emotional intensity of Baroque art continue to resonate in contemporary practice, as internationally acclaimed artist Reza Aramesh demonstrates in his work across photography, sculpture, video, and performance. Engaging critically with Western art history, Aramesh draws on these Baroque qualities while exploring narratives of race, class, and sexuality in the modern world.
In this talk, Aramesh will reflect on the idea of the “Baroque continuum,” examining how the techniques, staging, and symbolic power of Caravaggio and his contemporaries continue to influence artists today. Audiences will gain insight into the dialogue between historical art and contemporary creative expression, experiencing firsthand the enduring impact of the Baroque on modern artistic practice.
Artist Talk | Reza Aramesh and the Baroque Continuum
Sunday, October 26, 2025
1:00 PM–2:00 PM
Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg
255 Beach Drive NE, St. Petersburg FL 33701
Free with cost of admission
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ABOUT REZA ARAMESH
Reza Aramesh is an internationally acclaimed artist whose work spans sculpture, drawing, embroidery, ceramics, video, and performance. His projects have been presented widely, including at the Venice Biennale (2015, 2024), Bienal de la Habana (2024), Asia Society Museum, New York (2020), The Met Breuer (2018), SCAD Museum of Art, Atlanta (2018), Akademie der Künste, Berlin (2016), MAXXI, Rome (2016), Art Basel Parcours (2017), and Frieze Sculpture Park (2015, 2017). He has also orchestrated performances and exhibitions at the Barbican Centre, Tate Britain, and ICA, London, and his works are held in public and private collections across Argentina, Germany, Lithuania, Poland, the United States, Belgium, France, Iran, Lebanon, Israel, and the United Kingdom. Drawing on media coverage of international conflicts from the mid-20th century to the present, Aramesh collaborates with non-professional models to re-stage these images into refined sculptural “actions,” stripping overt signs of war to expose the tension between beauty and brutality. Through this decontextualization, he probes representation and the iconography of the subjected male body—interrogating race, class, and sexuality in critical dialogue with the Western art-historical canon.
Images:
Reza Aramesh (Iranian, active London, b. 1970), Study of the Head as Cultural Artifacts (detail), 2003, Hand carved and polished Bianco Michelangelo marble, Courtesy of the Artist and Dastan Gallery, Private Collection.
