Published 29 AUG 2024

Opening – 13 SEP 2024, 6-10 pm
13 SEP until 16 NOV 2024

20 years of exhibitions
20 years of dialog
20 years of journey
20 years of creating spaces
20 years of meeting great people
20 years of shaping visions

We are lucky that we have been able to share these 20 years with you, that you have embraced our way of making art visible, that our visions have also become yours, and that you have gone along with us every step of the way and are now celebrating Berlin and Venice with us.

Art is such a meaningful way to reflect and create a dialog. And this is exactly what our anniversary exhibition is all about. All gallery artists enter into a dialog with one of their works and self-selected partners who react to the respective artwork. The works and commentaries are cross-genre; they open up new perspectives and approaches; they look at art from other perspectives. They express what moves you, us, and our environment.

20 years of dialog – 20 years, a celebration

With contributions by Nevin Aladag, Hicham Berrada, Phoebe Boswell, Jenny Brosinski, Axel Geis, Karl Haendel, Gregor Hildebrandt, John McAllister, Olaf Metzel, Gerold Miller, Mary Ramsden, David Renggli, Anastasia Samoylova, Jan-Ole Schiemann, Britta Thie, Wawrzyniec Tokarski, Marion Verboom, Sophie von Hellermann and Thomas Wachholz.

With commentaries by Michael Berryhill, Juriaan Benschop, Walter Dahn, Madeleine Frey, Irène Hug, Patricia Köstring, Dietmar Lutz, Edie Monetti, Tom Morton, Alya Sebti, Kelly Tippsman, Océane Pilastre, Tobias Rehberger, Michael Seilsdorfer, Monica Uszerowicz, Fritzson Wentrup

Opening – 13 SEP 2024, 6-10 pm
13 SEP till 16 NOV 2024

WENTRUP II

Wentrup is pleased to present the first solo exhibition of Paris-based artist Desire Moheb-Zandi during Berlin Art Week 2024. In her large-format, sculptural tapestries, the artist combines her personal history and cultural identity. Drawing on memories of her childhood in Turkey, where her grandmother taught her to weave, Moheb-Zandi interweaves traditional techniques with modern motifs and media. The artist transforms themes and forms as part of a long-standing tradition, handed down from generation to generation, into her own language – into “New Traditions”. She draws on the diversity of her cultural roots, her travels, and the people she has met along the way.

In the same way, the artist observes and collects various materials that she is surrounded by and that are available today: re-cycled cut-up bras, neon threads, wool, PVC, rubber tubes, or glittering upcycled yarn from an Italian textile factory. She intuitively assembles these materials into a palette that reflects her formal and chromatic explorations. And here too, by choosing “her thread”, she creates new traditions that lift the art of weaving to a new level.

When constructing the wall pieces, the artist is guided by her intuition and works without preparatory sketches. The thread and the rhythm of the loom dictate the composition and thus  become the score. It is a mutual interplay that can best be compared with the relationship between a conductor and the orchestra. Moheb-Zandi synchronizes the various materials, just as a conductor organizes the orchestra. The result is a melody, a textile score.

The tapestries are complemented by the so-called soft sculptures. Often in the shape of drops, sometimes placed horizontally, sometimes vertically on the works, their shimmering surface is reminiscent of the glittering sunbeams dancing on the sea. They make us think of the wave movements of the sea, carrying us into a dreamlike sphere. At the same time, they form a poetic cocoon that contains the artist’s thoughts. Notes and poems that she wrote on small pieces of paper during or after the completion of the work and then sewed into the soft sculpture. The textile score put into words and given to her on her journey.

Like Anni Albers before her, Desire Moheb-Zandi has succeeded in “historically combining the artist’s intuitive sculptural talent with the traditional art of weaving”. Indeed, Moheb-Zandi embraces all the symbolism of the fabric as she embarks on a more free and inventive path to push the boundaries of traditional weaving by using and exploring new materials and her own techniques.

Desire Moheb-Zandi *1990 in Berlin lives and works in Paris. She’s the granddaughter of Uzbeks, and grew up in Turkey, the birth country of part of her family (the other being Iranian). She studied at the BBA Koc University in Istanbul and then moved to New York to study at Parsons School of Design.

Selected solo exhibitions include: “A Way to stay’ at Fold Gallery, London”; “Fields of Reflections”, superzoom, Paris; “Landscapes” at The Newsstand Project, Los Angeles. Selected group exhibitions include: “Coexistence”, Istanbul Atatürk Cultural Centre, Istanbul; “The Sowers”, Fondation Thalie, Brussels; “The First Meal”, Poush Manifesto, Paris.
The artist has been featured in numerous publications, including Architectural Digest, Artnet, Artspeak, Juxtapoz, and the New York Times.
In 2022, she realized a major commission for Chanel Métiers D’Art, as well as for Diane von Furstenberg in 2017. In 2024 she received the Prix Art Éco Conception from Art of Change x Palais de Tokyo.