Slavs and Tatars: Simurgh Self-Help

The Third Line is pleased to announce Simurgh Self-Help, our third solo exhibition with the artist collective Slavs and Tatars. This exhibition presents a new body of work inspired by Marcel Broodthaers’ Musée d'Art Moderne - Département des Aigles (1968-1972), one of the most influential works of conceptual art of the 20^th century. In Simurgh Self-Help, Slavs and Tatars embark on an inventive ‘translation’ of the eagle through the lens of Simurgh, a mythical bird deeply rooted in Turkic and Persianate folklore, Sufi traditions, and the literature of the Caucasus and Central Asia.

Gallery One is dedicated to exploring the mythology of Simurgh, a winged creature often depicted with the body of a peacock and the head of a dog. Simurgh is both female and male, though most frequently portrayed as female, and is said to have witnessed the destruction of the world three times over. The exhibition juxtaposes the eagle and the Simurgh to offer a speculative history, presenting an alter-ego for contemporary societies dealing with dilemmas about national identity and nationalism. Through this ‘translation’, Slavs and Tatars expand Broodthaers’ critique to include the often-overlooked region of Central Asia and the Caucasus, an area historically situated between fading empires - Russian, Ottoman, and Persian - and contemporary revanchist forces. If the eagle serves as a repository for nationalism and empire, rooted in geopolitical concerns, the Simurgh evokes an empire of senses and a dominion of the otherworldly, bridging the affective and the extractive.

In Gallery Two, the exhibition pivots to explore melons as Central Asian repositories of value, knowledge, and world-building. Writing, central to Slavs and Tatars’ practice, appears in the texture of melon skins and within the pages of books. Here, the melons, depicted as glass lamps or mirrors, tell the story of the region via flora, rather than fauna.

Slavs and Tatars have long been drawn to the peripheries of knowledge, the edges of belief systems, and the margins of rituals - places where syncretism and hybridity thrive. Today, however, they also seek to activate and redeem what unites us, as much as what distinguishes us.

Simurgh Self-Help is the first significant new body of work by  Slavs and Tatars since Pickle Politics (2016-2023). Following its regional debut at The Third Line, works from the exhibition will travel for solo presentations at Kunsthalle Baden-Baden, Germany, and Frac Pays de la Loire, France, in 2025.