Since everything passes is the first exhibition in Europe by Hossein Valamanesh.

For more than 40 years, this Australian artist of Iranian origin has explored through a wide variety of mediums the themes of love, nature and spirituality, forming an intimate and universal work of total coherence inspired by the both through his roots and his adopted land.

A selection of works from the 1980s to the present day proposes to discover his approach permeated by the writings of Djalâl ad-Dîn Rûmî, a 13th century Persian mystical poet who deeply influenced Sufism. Combining surrealist humor and the sobriety of arte povera, Hossein Valamanesh freely combines multiple references evoking his childhood memories, his experience of exile or the deep spiritual bond that the Aborigines maintain with their environment, and makes them converge in an awareness of the impermanence of things and beings, Since everything passes.

Faithful to the fluidity of this thought, the exhibition navigates between eras and inspirations, pre-existing works and those designed especially for the event.

The visitor immediately immerses himself in an in situ device: sections of semi-transparent fabric form a maze where the word love is repeated in Farsi, while at the bottom of the space stands out a planisphere holding more of the puzzle than of the mapping. After this voluntary disorientation, the route invites meditative recollection: the gyrating movement of an evanescent dervish echoes that of planets / atoms, in a hypnotizing round combining the infinitely large with the infinitely small.

The exhibition then takes on an introspective dimension, Hossein Valamanesh celebrating the maternal figure between period photographs and barely transformed natural elements, interweaving the contexts between Iran and Australia, where the artist emigrated in 1973. The notion of the double appears in a projected shadow, a shirt with two collars, or an earthen silhouette sketched on the ground, like the promise of an inevitable disappearance.

Could writing be more resistant to the passage of time? The textual works brought together later borrow its sacred breath from calligraphy in an attempt to immortalize the beauty of the gesture, tirelessly repeated in a quest for ultimate perfection. The journey ends with these sculpted words, as if whispered by a branch: Say nothing. Because what could be more perfect than the rustling of nature itself?

The exhibition is accompanied by a  multidisciplinary program combining performing arts, round tables and films. Jazz mingles with Afro-Iranian rhythms for a mystical journey, the Ahl-e Haqq ceremonial present in Iraqi Kurdistan is celebrated by the Razbar ensemble while the poetry of the verses of Djalâl ad-Dîn Rûmî resonates with the works of 'Hossein  Valamanesh in an evening event. Of  conferences addressing the issue of representation in Persian culture or geopolitical developments in Iran while a contemporary film program evokes the situation of Aborigines in Australia. Finally, the young audience has a dedicated offer  with live entertainment, film-snacks and r embodiment of a dervish spinning.