Noblesse Oblige (pumpkin seed)

The new­spaper headline tells us: “Noblesse oblige, précariat exige” – nobility obliges, precariat requires.

Noblesse Oblige (sunflower)

Slavs and Tatars’ work often mixes registers of high and low, high-​brow ideologies and low-​brow media (pic­kles to bal­loons). In that vein, roasted sun­flower seeds are a staple snack, shared across the Slavic-​Turkic peoples from Eastern Europe to Cen­tral Asia. Like the wheat of Wheat Mollah, the sun­flower seed becomes a symbol of proletariat or rather, its 21st cen­tury suces­sor, the précariat. 

Qatalogue

A fully func­tional wool carpet serves as an emblem of the artists’ interest in lan­guage and the relation­ship between speech and the body.

The Inrising

The mythical Per­sian bird replaced the Polish royal eagle in a symbol of solidarity.

Naughty Nasals

The Rus­sian Cyril­lization of Polish was introduced in the Rus­sian par­tition in the nineteenth cen­tury. Two Polish let­ters in par­ticular were problematic: the “ą” and the “ę.” These nasals had disap­peared from
most other Slavic lan­guages. The solution came via let­ters from the Old Slavonic lan­guage, Ѫѫ (big yus) and Ѧѧ (little yus): Naughty Nasals under­line the affront of Orthodox- Cyril­lic on a Catholic-​Latin iden­tity. Slavs and Tatars have trans­for­med
the let­ters into fur­niture resem­bling por­table con­fes­sion booths.

Pavement Prose: Język lata jak łopata

The shovel, as the cen­trepiece of the Towarzystwo Szubrawców logo, is used to parody the parasitism of the nobility who rides it like a witch.

Figa

An obscene hand gesture specific to Turkic and Slavic cul­tures, “Figa” revisits the old Egyp­tian proverb: “Life is like a cucum­ber: one day in your hand and one day in your ass.”

Hammer and Nipple

Whether in North America, Europe, the Middle East or Asia, we’re increasin­gly sour on power.

Pan Chrzan

Pan Chrzan is the main hero of Slavs and Tatars’ body of work on Pickle Politics.

Vacuums

The conver­sion of a lan­guage from one script to another is a routine act of alphabet penitence. The reason we do so hurriedly—with a dose of chagrin, hol­ding our noses, on the back of a scrap of paper—stems in part from transliteration’s maligned status. One thing is clear: trans­lation it is not. Alas, trans­literation is the trashier youn­ger sibling of trans­lation, its more prestigious, older sister.

Hung and Tart

Hung and Tart features a heart that becomes a tongue, enac­ting a synap­sis, or short cut between the con­cep­tion of speech, sym­bolic and sin­cere, and its delivery.

Irokez

The daily taming of hair is an act of civilization, bat­tling the frizzy and curly unruliness of the body.

AÂ AÂ AÂ UR

AÂ AÂ AÂ UR is the original ancient Egyp­tian demotic text, meaning literally “big, big, very big”, from which the Greeks conceived/translated the name of Hermes Trismegistis (Thrice Great), the author/ foun­der of Her­meticism, an esoteric body of know­ledge that speaks to the great tradition of inter­faith dialogue and mysticism.

Ezan Çılgıŋŋŋŋŋları

Prepared for and first exhibited during 8th Berlin Bien­nale, Ezan Çılgıŋŋŋŋŋları con­sists of two out­sized speakers set up in the form of a rahlé (or stand for holy books) onto which visitors were invited to sit, lie down, relax and reflect.

Lahestan Nesfeh Jahan

Lahestan Nesfeh Jahan (literally, “Poland, Half the World”) com­memorates the for­got­ten World War II episode of Polish refugees to Iran when Esfahan came to be known as the City of Polish Chil­dren. The text is a revision of the city’s legen­dary slogan, per­haps one of the most famous in Per­sian, “Esfahan Nesfeh Jahan” (“Esfahan, Half the World”).

RASTER EDITIONS

Larry Nixed, Trachea Trixed

Larry nixed, Trachea trixed looks at various attempts to Cyril­licize sounds or phonemes that did not previously exist in the Rus­sian Cyril­lic alphabet, one of many attempts to extend or embed Soviet influence.

Bandari String Fingerling

The daily taming of hair is an act of civilization, bat­tling the unruliness of the body. In this sense the rituals of daily existence, such as com­bing one’s hair, echo as objects the coun­sel of the Mir­rors for Prin­ces genre.

Swinging Septum

Long eclip­sed by the mouth, as source of libidinal lin­guistics, Swin­ging Septum restores the nose as an equally discur­sive and desirous organ of lan­guage. A flat sil­houette nose sways from left to right, evocative of the facial acrobatics the septum must per­form to reach the sonorous heights of /ɛ/ or /ɔ̃/.

Tongue Twist Her

The pole exchan­ges its topless dancer for something no less racy: a giant, fleshy tongue twir­ling around and down the pole, a nod to the 60 odd years of chan­ges in parts of the former-​Soviet, Tur­kophone world from Arabic to Latin to Cyril­lic back to Latin.

Madame MMMorphologie

Standing tall book greets its visitors as a madame. A love story come to life, Madame MMMor­phologie winks at her pas­sersby, her long eyelashes linked to the quasi-​illicit amorous rap­port the book can compel in people.