A Great Wagon
by Rumi
When I see your face, the stones start spinning!
You appear; all studying wanders.
I lose my place.
Water turns pearly.
Fire dies down and doesn’t destroy.
In your presence I don’t want what I thought
I wanted, those three little hanging lamps.
Inside your face the ancient manuscripts
Seem like rusty mirrors.
You breathe; new shapes appear,
and the music of a desire as widespread
as Spring begins to move
like a great wagon.
Drive slowly.
Some of us walking alongside
are lame!
~
Today, like every other day, we wake up empty
and frightened. Don’t open the door to the study
and begin reading. Take down a musical instrument.
Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.
~
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field. I’ll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase each other
doesn’t make any sense.
~
The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don’t go back to sleep.
You must ask for what you really want.
Don’t go back to sleep.
People are going back and forth across the doorsill
where the two worlds touch.
The door is round and open.
Don’t go back to sleep.
I would love to kiss you.
The price of kissing is your life.
Now my loving is running toward my life shouting,
What a bargain, let’s buy it.
~
Daylight, full of small dancing particles
and the one great turning, our souls
are dancing with you, without feet, they dance.
Can you see them when I whisper in your ear?
~
They try to say what you are, spiritual or sexual?
They wonder about Solomon and all his wives.
In the body of the world, they say, there is a soul
and you are that.
But we have ways within each other
that will never be said by anyone.
~
Come to the orchard in Spring.
There is light and wine, and sweethearts
in the pomegranate flowers.
If you do not come, these do not matter.
If you do come, these do not matter.
Carl Kostyál is delighted to present the debut exhibition of Turkish artist Desire Moheb-Zandi (b. 1990, Berlin, lives and works in Paris) with the gallery in London, opening on June 6.
“The canvas works are constructed using an inset seam, like drawing with a sewing machine. The forms are inspired by celestial cycles much larger than ourselves. Hand-cut organic shapes are joined through stitching. Made from canvas, they occupy a space between painting and textile, where surface becomes form. The sculptural tapestries are hand woven on a floor loom, exploring new textures and rhythms while drawing on ancient textile traditions.”
– Desire Moheb-Zandi on “East of Somewhere Else”
Desire-Moheb Zandi, ‘East of Somewhere Else’, Exhibition Text
Moheb-Zandi recently participated in the group exhibition ‘The Cloak of Dreams’ curated by Carl Kostyál at SWCAC Museum, Shenzhen (2025) and has participated in the gallery’s Invitational Draw Jam (2022).
Moheb-Zandi has presented solo exhibitions at Wentrup GmbH, Berlin; Fold Gallery, London; superzoom, Paris; and The Newsstand Project, Los Angeles. Her work has been included in group exhibitions at the Atatürk Cultural Centre, Istanbul; Fondation Thalie, Brussels; and Poush Manifesto, Paris, among others. She has been featured in publications including The New York Times, Architectural Digest, Artnet, Juxtapoz, and ArtSpeak.
Notable commissions include projects for Diane von Furstenberg (2017) and Chanel Métiers d’Art (2022). In 2024, she was awarded the Prix Art Éco Conception by Art of Change and the Palais de Tokyo.