Slavs and Tatars

Founded in 2006, Slavs and Tatars mine the complexities and unexpected affinities across cultures through publications, lecture performances, and installations. Originally set up as an informal book-club, the collective explores a literary and political geography known as Eurasia, defined by themselves as “east of the former Berlin Wall and west of the Great Wall of China”. The artists work across cycles, where extended periods of research give life to an eco-system of installations, sculptures, lectures, and printed matter that question our understanding of language, ritual and identity. In this context, viewers are invited to perform the "metaphysical splits" by trying to accommodate conflicting ideas and sensations drawn from opposite ends of the cultural, religious, historical, or emotional spectrum. Imbued with humor and a generosity of spirit, their work commonly blends pop visuals with esoteric traditions, oral rituals with scholarly analysis in a way that opens new paths of contemporary discourse.

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Slavs and Tatars have exhibited across the Middle East, Europe and North America at institutions including the Tate Modern, London; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Istanbul Modern, Turkey; and the 10th Sharjah, 8th Berlin, 3rd Thessaloniki and 9th Gwangju Biennials.

In 2019, they presented a significant installation for the 58th Venice Biennale exhibition, May You Live In Interesting Times, curated by Ralph Rugoff.

Solo presentations of their work have taken place at East Contemporary, Milan (2023); West, The Hague (2023); Basement Roma, Rome (2023); Humboldt Forum, Berlin (2022); Hacernoche, Oaxaca (2022); Neubauer Collegium Gallery, Chicago (2022); Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery, Haverford (2021); Kunsthalle Osnabrück (2021); Hayward Gallery, London (2021); Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich (2021); Villa Arson, Nice (2020); Kunstverein Hannover (2018); Westfälischer Kunstverein, Münster (2018); CAC, Vilnius (2017); Museum of Contemporary Art Belgrade (2017); Center for Contemporary Art, Warsaw (2016); Blaffer Art Museum, University of Houston, Texas (2016); Kunsthal Aarhus, Aarhus, Denmark (2015); Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane, Australia (2015); Kunsthalle Zürich, Switzerland (2014); Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas (2014); Secession, Vienna (2012); and MoMA, New York (2012), among others.

The subjects of Slavs and Tatars’ lecture performances include transliteration as language in drag, Slavic Orientalism and the metaphysics of protest. These works have been presented extensively at leading universities, museums, and institutions. Books by Slavs and Tatars include Mirrors for Princes (NYU Abu Dhabi Art Gallery and JRP-Ringier, 2015), Friendship of Nations: Polish Shi’ite Showbiz (Book Works, 2013), Khhhhhhh (Mousse/Moravia Gallery, 2012), Not Moscow Not Mecca (Revolver/Secession, 2012), Love Me, Love Me Not: Changed Names (onestar press, 2010), Kidnapping Mountains (Book Works, 2009), as well as their translation of the legendary Azeri satire, Molla Nasreddin: the magazine that would’ve, could’ve, should’ve (JRP | Ringier, 2011).

Their work can be found in the collections of the Dallas Museum of Art, Texas; Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin; Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich; Sharjah Art Foundation, UAE; Tate Modern, London; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; and The Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw, among others.

In 2015, Slavs and Tatars were shortlisted for the prestigious Preis der Nationalgalerie award in Germany, and were subsequently awarded the Audience Award.