Exhibition:
Long ago, and not true anyway

Slavs and Tatars is a faction devoted to an area east of the former Berlin Wall, and west of the Great Wall of China known as Eurasia - often focusing on a sphere of influence between Slavs, Caucasians and Central Asians.

Core to their interests are geopolitical issues of identity, language and territorial disputes as well as the potential of the numinous, or holy, as agents in the concrete, material world. Often beginning with publishing, the collective’s practice encompasses installation and performative elements spanning several media, disciplines, and a spectrum of cultural registers (high and low). Their text-based works are taken from a variety of sources and play with double meanings, mistranslation, transliteration, language barriers and notions of dichotomy between east and west. Through an element of humor, and its potential to offer a seductive form of critique, Slavs and Tatars introduce arcane subject matter to a broad audience.

Slavs and Tatars formed in 2005 and since then have exhibited extensively worldwide including solo presentations Beyonsense, MOMA, New York, Not Moscow Not Mecca, Secession, Vienna, Friendship of Nations, KIOSK, Ghent, Kidnapping Mountains, Netwerk Allast, Belgium. Their work has also been presented in Love Me Love Me Not, Venice Biennale 2013, I decided not to save the world, Tate Modern, 2011, Nouvelles Vagues, Palais de Tokyo, 2013, and 10th Sharjah Biennale, 2011.

Slavs and Tatars’ recent book project Friendship of Nations: Polish Shi’ite Showbiz was published by Bookworks, London, in May 2013.