Everything passes. What may sound melancholic at first becomes an invitation in Ivan Gette’s work to experience the present all the more intensely. With “TUTTO PASSA”, the Berlin-based artist presents a new series during Berlin Art Week exploring change, memory and what remains of a fleeting moment.
Tutto passa – everything passes. In Italian, two simple words contain an entire philosophy of life. It is not about holding on, but about recognising that it is precisely the fleeting nature of a moment that gives it its value.
For Berlin-based artist Ivan Gette this idea became the starting point for his series of the same name. The initial impulse came during a stay in Pietrasanta, Tuscany, where he began engaging more deeply with the philosophy of Tutto Passa: everything changes, every moment is unique – and yet some moments leave traces that endure far beyond their actual duration.
Memories Become Colour
Gette does not attempt to depict these moments. Instead, he translates them into colour, structure and movement. His abstract works emerge intuitively and immediately, shaped by travel, encounters and unfiltered emotions.
Gette describes his own artistic language as “abstract nihilism”. Structure encounters chaos, order dissolves into disruption. It is a form of painting that resists a definitive interpretation – and finds its openness precisely in that refusal.
Gette deliberately chooses not to explain his paintings. What a work means is ultimately determined through its encounter with the viewer. He takes this idea one unusual step further: his paintings initially remain untitled. Only the collectors who acquire a work are invited to give it a name.
Owning an artwork thus becomes a personal relationship. The title inscribes an individual memory into the painting, connecting it with yet another moment.
What Remains When Everything Passes?
Before dedicating himself entirely to painting, Ivan Gette worked for several years as an art director and in marketing, including for Nike. Born in Siberia, he now lives and works in Berlin. His works have been shown internationally, including in the context of Art Basel Miami Beach and at Parallel Vienna, and can be found in private collections across Europe, the United States, India and the United Arab Emirates.
With “TUTTO PASSA”, however, the focus shifts away from the artist’s career towards something more universal: time can neither be owned nor recovered. What remains are memories – of places, encounters, emotions and those seemingly insignificant moments whose importance sometimes only becomes apparent in retrospect.
Perhaps this is precisely where the tension in Gette’s paintings lies. They do not attempt to stop time. They accept that it continues to move.
And make visible what it leaves behind.
TUTTO PASSA | IVAN GETTE
9. September bis 22. November 2026
Opening: 9. September 2026
AK GALERIE | Behrenstraße 31 | 10117 Berlin
POSITIONS Berlin Art Fair
10. bis 13. September 2026
Flughafen Tempelhof | Hangar 5–6 | Berlin
