Absurd and sad: art that knows no boundaries and an artist that Luxembourg does not want

The door in Prabbeli in Wiltz opens, the first visitors enter the room. They stop in front of the works, make the photographs and videos appear on them, and yet something is missing – or rather: someone. Alborz Teymoorzadeh, the artist behind these works, is not there. He can't be there. Luxembourg has refused the residence permit to the IranianWhich made many headlines at the end of the year and forced the Iranian -born artist to leave.

His art can be exhibited, but he himself has to stay outside. The works in the Prabbeli therefore speak for themselves, for him and for an art that cannot be stopped. The organizer, the ASBL Cooperations, tried everything to bring the artist to Luxembourg for the vernissage. For this, he appealed to politics and hoped for an exception, a sign that art must not fail due to limits. But in vain!

And so that was Exhibition « éternelles instantanéités » by Alborz Teymoorzadeh opened in Prabbeli on Saturday – without the artist. His works have to speak louder now than ever. They tell of incredible eternity, but also a bit of identity, home and what it means to be excluded. The art exhibition is an impressive, but also painful symbol that art does not need any papers – but the person behind it. « Éternelles instantanéités » is a quiet but strong statement about the reality of art, migration and bureaucracy in Europe.

Incredible eternity vs. fatal hybris

Politics stayed away from the vernissage. Although it is his constituency, Minister of Culture Eric Thill did not come to Wiltz. That he and the culture could not keep the artist in the country, were not even called to the negotiating table when decided on the fate of the Iranian, but domestic politics, migration, economy and work, had made it clear, that the culture is absolutely not an important link in the power structure of the current government is.

The curator Enrico Lunghi, who also Alborz 'Professor of Art History At the University of Lëtzebuerg, the exhibition curated. In his short speech, he described the artist on Saturday as a charming, intelligent, talented person full of energy. « His exhibited works are of disturbing beauty, they give the incredible eternity of the sensations experienced, » said the curator. However, it was sad and absurd that Alborz could not be part of the vernissage. “He, who makes us rethink the beauty of the moment through his work, is more unimaginably valuable to us than our poor political instances, which suffocate the world with its gloomy money obsession, its selfish hypocrisy and fatal hybris, which makes it less and less desirable from day to day. Alborz and other artists fight against it. ”

Alborz is currently living in Belgium, but is not allowed to visit any other country because of the asylum procedure. The organizers sent letters to Foreign Minister Xavier Bettel in order to obtain an exception to the asylum applicant's entry, but the answers remained extremely scarce. It was rejected. Meanwhile, Alborz himself has given prime minister Luc Frieden, the chamber president Claude Wiseler, the Minister of Justice Elisabeth Margue and the chairman of the Chamber of Baro Albert Moro. The mail traffic is pinned to the wall at the entrance to the exhibition.

Alborz Teymoorzadeh, born in 1987, borrowed the technique of multiplication of time sequences from Italian futurism in his artistic work in order to present the simultaneous, different and changing appearance of the same body or a situation or an object. He shows photo works on different topics, architecture, hands, theater and body, as well as three video work.

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In the Prabbeli art space (8, Gruberbeerig, Wiltz) until April 30th. More under: www.dialogue.lu