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Iranian-born artist Reza Aramesh’s work has not just
explored issues of inhumanity, cruelty and suffering (based on images from the
popular press), but, to me, has also deeply questioned the extent to which the
visual arts have attempted, throughout history, to even acknowledge issues of human
suffering. Indeed, in his approach to depicting victims of war he seems to question
whether visual art can even adequately address the compelling issues of
oppression and horror given the financial basis of the whole field.
Throughout his career Aramesh has regularly taken images
from the popular press of individuals who have been captured in war or military
occupations and he has ‘decontextualized’ the victims. Basically he removes the
victim from the context of his capture – you see the victim alone, in a posture
of subjugation, and as the victim is often naked or semi-naked, you are not
even aware of the time frame of the capture, abuse and humiliation the prisoner
is undergoing. Aramesh also adds a little twist by referencing iconic images of
religious suffering in his sculptures. One might be reminded of Bernini,
Velasquez, Caravaggio, Reni et al. as one looks at Aramesh’s pieces. He has
also employed actors in the past to create types of tableau vivant of prisoners
suffering and has staged these ‘actions’ in various highly respected art
institutions.
This artist is aware of the fact, obviously, that the
only suffering that was depicted in the art of the great masters of the
Renaissance and Baroque eras was the suffering of Jesus, martyrs, souls in hell
or mythological figures (like Marsyas or Proserpina). Suffering due to military conflict or social
oppression seems utterly absent from the visual arts until after the French
Revolution. Even after the French Revolution, when artists could choose their
own subject matter, they had to rely on what might sell in the marketplace, and
suffering doesn’t tend to sell. Aramesh therefore references the stylized suffering
depicted by the great masters in subtle ways in his Action series, where
contemporary images of cruelty are blended with previous artistic depictions of
‘noble’ and higher suffering – more commercial suffering.
So when, in art history, we see Jesus or a saint
suffering, the goal is not to engender a sense of outrage or fellow feeling.
The goal is to instill admiration or veneration for the ‘other’ morally
superior person who refused compromise and who made a sacrifice for you, one
you’ll never be expected to make. The suffering is often stylized and even
sexy. Mishima, the 20th
century Japanese writer, discovered his latent homosexuality when he saw a copy
of Guido Reni’s Saint Sebastian. Mishima admits in an autobiographical work
that he had an involuntary orgasm upon seeing this piece which has often been
said to harbor a deeper sexual meaning.
The history of art has not encouraged us to connect with victims of
torture and abuse but to masturbate to them. We become Casanova and the Marquis
de Sade watching the execution of Robert-François
Damiens from our hotel terraces. Unless you stylize and sexualize
suffering, it is unsellable. The suffering depicted by the old masters is
revealed to be absurd or ridiculous in light of Aramesh’s works, where the
victims are not suffering for us, but are just hapless, random victims chosen
to be objects of rage and ideological or racial hatred.
An implication of Aramesh’s work could, therefore, be
that artists who choose to buck the market and depict social suffering,
basically, have to reject the history of art. So the real value of Aramesh’s
work, in my opinion, is that he wants us to move beyond veneration, pity and
compassion. He wants us to move beyond viewing those who suffer as ‘others’ and
to attempt a deeper connection and examination of how we respond emotionally to
a helpless victim. How has art taught us to engage suffering? Allegorically. Art has trained us to accept suffering as a
noble calling, not reject suffering as a form of brutal abuse by militarily
stronger nations.
In his show at Leila Heller Gallery, Aramesh makes his
usual figure of submission more abstract although the figure in the kneeling
position is still removed from all context. By removing the context for the
submissive posture we are directly engaged by someone in this position –
engaged by the position itself. By doing
this Reza removes any possible legal or military justification for the
position. We are engaged in a type of disgust and sympathy for the individual
who has been compelled to endure this situation. With no context there is no
justification and we become aware of a process whereby human degradation stands
alone as categorically morally wrong. It’s as if Reza rejects the explanations
and the lack of context gives the pieces greater power. Context subsumes direct
engagement – it forces one to tell a story of what’s happening, which leads to
a sense of moral justification or condemnation. Instead of an excuse or indictment
of war, we are brought closer to the experience of suffering and the vulnerable
humanity of the victims. But, without context, there is also no perceivable way
to relieve the suffering which is perceived.
Of course, an
irony is that a figure in a posture of submission becomes quickly allegorized
as well. He is like Lucky from Godot. He is the inner aspect of our nature we
expect to be dominant and liberating but which is inexplicably subjugated to
the irrational, aggressive and malicious. Indeed, I think Aramesh might be
trying to present his prisoner figures in a more symbolic or allegorical light
in this show as we often just see a silhouette of the suffering prisoner, often
filled in with found images and objects. Included in the show are porcelain
pieces representing bundles of clothes representing the process of stripping
prisoners naked as part of the process of breaking them psychologically. The
title of the show comes from the fact that on Friday April 25, 2003 at 7:05AM,
two Norwegian journalists witnessed American soldiers leading 4 naked Iraqi men
through the city of Bagdad simply as an exercise in dominance and humiliation. It
was, basically, Pozzo and Lucky in literal form. Yet, here again, in the
presentation of discarded clothing, we see a reference to Christian suffering –
in the 10th station of the Catholic Via Dolorosa Christ is stripped
of his clothing. The difference is that we are not as distant from the Iraqis
stripped of their clothing as we are from Christ.
Reza Aramesh
April 23 – May 23, 2015
Leila Heller Gallery
568 W. 25th Street
New York, NY 10001
