For June Art Fair (June 12–18, 2023), Belmacz will spotlight Abbas Zahedi (b.1984, UK). A pathbreaking artist, Zahedi’s practice is resoundingly touching. Through an interdisciplinary blend of contemporary philosophy, poetics and social dynamics, Zahedi’s explores how personal and collective histories interweave; holding ajar the socio-politics that so often define modes of being today. And, in this way, he scripts moments for togetherness.

Predominantly working across sound and sculpture, as well as with site and context specific gestures, Zahedi’s artworks speak beyond themselves. Deeply generous and socially motivated, Zahedi’s projects have been described as “truly transformative” (The Art Newspaper, 2022). Indeed by “connecting the works’ disparate strands” (Artforum, 2022), Zahedi’s works evoke questions that “transcend specific coordinates” (Mousse Magazine, 2023), allowing us to consider new routes ahead.

Belmacz’s presentation at June Art Fair will consist of a number of customised exit signs; small sculptural gestures that constitute one of Zahedi’s ongoing spatial series. Initially developed for his solo exhibition at South London Gallery (2020), this ongoing series co-opts the internationally known signifier for emergency escape routes, transforming these otherwise mundane objects into emotive expressions; expressions at once alluding to loss and mourning, and at the same time processes of de-embodiment so pertinent to the ‘logic of the White Cube.’ Furthering Zahedi’s critical interest in the effect of socio-political systems on bodies, each of these Exit Signs explore how processes of exiting have become wholly biopolitical. That is, with their subtle modifications, each of Zahedi’s Exit Signs point towards how rigid systems differentiate between differently particular bodies in differently particular ways. In turn, they speak to ideas of human agency, loss, and the transformations bodies make in order to become ‘proper’ fixtures within a one-dimension world-system.

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Preview and work list available upon request. Please email gallery@belmacz.com