In Reza Aramesh’s Site of the Fall: Study of the Renaissance Garden three hand-carved and polished Carrara marble sculptures – crafted in Pietrasanta, Italy to the ratio 5:4 of human scale – are presented within three contrapuntal contexts: beside the masterpieces of the Antikenmuseum; before the threshold of the Basel courthouse, as if awaiting judgment; and finally, upon the banks of the Rhine river.
By formally alluding to Renaissance ideals, Aramesh presents the beautiful as the damned: victims excluded from paradise. Blending classical aesthetics with anonymous figures from contemporary media, his victims have been rendered invisible. Yet at the same time, the study questions the traditional representation of suffering throughout the Western art historical canon.
