The Museum of Fine Arts St. Petersburg has opened a new exhibition titled "Ali Banisadr: The Alchemist," featuring two decades of work by the artist Ali Banisadr. The show runs through July 12, 2026, and includes recurring figures drawn from ancient Egyptian tarot cards and other historical symbols, as well as references to artificial intelligence and a dinosaur-headed self-portrait. Senior curator Stanton Thomas, who typically works with Old Masters, collaborated directly with Banisadr on the exhibition.
The exhibition matters because it highlights Banisadr's unique practice of tracing contemporary popular culture imagery back to ancient archetypes, blending traditional painting techniques with modern themes. By bringing a living artist into dialogue with historical symbolism, the show offers visitors a rare opportunity to see how ancient visual languages continue to inform and critique the present moment, bridging past and future in a single body of work.