ART CITIES:Hannover-Slavs and Tatars
Wishing to remain largely anonymous as a collective of unnamed artists, Slavs and Tatars was founded in 2006 by a Polish-Iranian duo. Over the years they have been joined by other artists from all over the world whose goal is to travel, conduct research, live on and off in Eurasia and plan to “dedicate the rest of our lives to this region, and we want to share our enthusiasm for it with others”.
By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Kunstverein Hannover Archive
Originally set up as an informal book-club, the collective Slavs and Tatars 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. Slavs and Tatars, present an exhibition at the Kunstverein Hannover with works about Eurasia that mixes high and low, pop culture and esoterica, faith and satire in ways rarely witnessed in the arts or the academy. A parcours was developed for the spaces of the Kunstverein Hannover inviting visitors to read themselves through the exhibition, both physically as well as mentally. On the occasion, the artists have created a sour milk bar, as part of their recent cycle of works called “Pickle Politics”. The artists see in fermentation a strategy to better understand and activate the “rot of our populist present”. By allowing for a space beyond the binary thinking of the Enlightenment, bacteria are the first Other, against which humans have defined themselves since Pasteur. The artists excavate the Turkic, Mongol and steppe origins of fermentation, as a nod to the very cultures against which Western civilization has traditionally defined itself, from Herodotus to Hitler.
Info: Kunstverein Hannover, Sophienstraße 2, Hannover, Duration: 17/11/18-27/1/19, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 12:00-19:00, Sun 11:00-19:00, www.kunstverein-hannover.de
