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.
