Slavs and Tatars’ new exhibition at Raster Gallery débuts work from Simurgh Self-Help, the collective’s first new cycle of work since Pickle Politics (2016-2023) which was originally launched on the occasion of the artists’ last exhibition at Raster in 2016. Drawing inspiration from Marcel Broodthaers’ Musée d’Art Moderne – Département des Aigles (1968-1972), one of the most influential works of conceptual art of the 20th century, Slavs and Tatars embark in an inventive ‘translation’ of the eagle, via the mythical bird Simurgh which exists in various guises in the Turko-Persianate world, from mythology to literature to oral and written traditions in Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia.
If the eagle serves as a repository for nationalism and empire, matters of this world in the geopolitical sense, the Simurgh helps us unlock an empire of senses and the dominion of the other-worldly: from the affective to the extractive. On the one hand stands the eagle, demoted in modern times to a secular symbol of vulgar nationalism as is the case in Poland but also Germany, the US and countless other nations, a short-hand of sorts for machismo and other unsavory ideas. On the other, Simurgh a metaphysical creature and allegory for spiritual elevation and self-knowledge, who is often depicted as flaming if not entirely gender-fluid.
A winged creature, mainly female, who has witnessed the destruction of the world three times over, the western-most example of Simurgh exists in Ukraine and extends eastwards to the Uyghur region in China.
Through the juxtaposition of the Eagle and the Simurgh, Slavs and Tatars offer a speculative history, an alter-ego of contemporary societies which face scorching dilemmas about national identity and nationalism. By ‘translating’ the eagle into a Simurgh, the collective expands the limited worldview of Broodthaers’ original and pioneering institutional critique to include an often over-looked region (Central Asia and Caucasus) sandwiched between fading, former and/or revanchist empires (Russian, Ottoman, Persian.
With the ability to fly, to travel, to sing, birds have long enchanted humans as symbols of liberation, from Aristophanes The Birds(Ornithes) to Farid ud-Din Attar’s The Conference of the Birds. Attar’s 12th century masterpiece famously stages an epic journey of several birds in search of the Simurgh. The literary device encapsulates the essence of democracy as a system that honors the voice of the individual while emphasizing the importance of collective decision-making, sharing and action.
Works from this new cycle will be featured in museum shows in 2025 in Germany (Kunsthalle Baden Baden) and France (Frac, Pays de la Loire).
