The Facts
On September 2, 2026, Thaddaeus Ropac gallery announced the exhibition 'Ali Banisadr: Temple of the Mind' at the Buffalo AKG Art Museum. The show is co-curated by the artist and the museum's collectors curator Holly E. Hughes, featuring Banisadr's oil paintings and bronze sculptures installed within the permanent collection galleries of the Robert and Elisabeth Wilmers Building, which houses works from the 1750s to the late 1950s. All works on view were created in the last four years, and the exhibition's title references Albert Pinkham Ryder's 1880s painting 'Temple of the Mind'. No works were made specifically for the exhibition, but the juxtapositions create dialogues with canonical pieces by artists including Paul Gauguin, Arshile Gorky, and Willem de Kooning.
The Signal
The exhibition represents a significant curatorial intervention, placing a contemporary artist's practice in direct conversation with a historic collection. For collectors and curators, it underscores Banisadr's engagement with art historical lineage and his ability to bridge abstraction and figuration. The museum's decision to host a contemporary intervention in its neoclassical building signals a strategic approach to activating its permanent collection, offering a model for how institutions can create generative dialogues across time periods without commissioning site-specific works.
- Artists: Ali Banisadr
- People: Holly E. Hughes, Cal McKeever
- Galleries: Thaddaeus Ropac
- Museums: Buffalo AKG Art Museum
- Locations: Buffalo
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