Birds of a Feather Birds of a Feather
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Slavs and Tatars, Samovar, 2024, vacuum-formed plastic, acrylic paint, 71 × 100 cm. Courtesy of Raster Gallery, Warsaw
Art

Birds of a Feather

Slavs and Tatars Rewrite the Past with Myth and Mischief
Steph Kretowicz
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The Eurasian art collective reimagines symbols of power through forgotten myths. As their recent Simurgh Self-Help exhibition at Warsaw’s Raster Gallery demonstrates, Slavs and Tatars are intent on translating not only languages but entire cultural narratives—from Persian epics to Soviet-altered alphabets—into tools for critique, humor, and healing. 

It’s what you’d expect from a member of the linguistically inclined, rhizomatic organism that is Slavs and Tatars, a platform he co-founded with partner Kasia Korczak. Alongside collaborators Stan de Natris, and Pickle Bar directors Anastasia Marukhina and Patricia Couvet, the collective focuses on the geographical region the group famously refers to as the area “east of the former Berlin Wall and west of the Great Wall of China.” Since its inception in 2006, Slavs and Tatars has published several books, presented numerous solo exhibitions and lecture-performances, and participated in countless group shows. They’ve shown their work in major institutions in New York, London, Paris, São Paulo, Gwangju, Abu Dhabi, as well as all across their focus region, like the Georgian city of Tbilisi and Azerbaijan’s capital Baku in the Caucasus. Slavs and Tatars’ eclectic and esoteric purview encompasses a wide range of topics, from the unlikely connections between the Iranian Revolution and the Polish Solidarity movement to the cross-cultural reach of the Turkic-Persian myth of the Simurgh.

Portrait Slavs and Tatars (Payam Sharifi, Kasia Korczak and Stan de Natris) in their Pickle Bar (c) 2018 Lêmrich (Alina Emrich, Kien Hoang Le) / Agentur FOCUS

“It’s considered to be a bird which has seen the destruction of the world three times over,” explains Sharifi, about the phoenix-like namesake of Slavs and Tatars’ recent Simurgh Self-​Help exhibition at Warsaw’s Raster Gallery. “It only exists in

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Sad Tropics

Wilhem Sasnal
In his recent, timely show Sad Tropics at Anton Kern, renowned Polish painter Wilhelm Sanal turns his cinematic gaze on his sojourn in Los Angeles. Named after Claude Lévi-Strauss’ anthropological travelogue Triste Tropique, it is a commentary on the contradictory nature of urban life in a natural paradise. From his bicycle vantage point, Sasnal has a unique perspective on the city—that of a temporary resident with the fresh eyes of a visitor. 
 
LA has always been a place for dreamers and misfits, which is fitting for an artist such as Sasnal. Amid the sprawl of freeways and strip malls characteristic of the American landscape, he finds the beauty in the banality. In his trademark reductive style, Sasnal paints trivial, everyday life—the scenes of contemporary reality. We see his daughter glued to her cellphone in spite of a beautiful sunset. Motion sensors, trash cans, and ocean rocks are all treated with his distinctive style of simple silhouettes and pared down, yet saturated tones. Bushes are rendered in his signature fluid brushstrokes. Paintings of signs feel like Xerox copies. Using his masterful technique, Sasnal paints not only the visible world of Los Angeles, but the psychological landscape of our time—one marked by uncertainty, contradiction, and an ever-shifting sense of place. 
 
Alongside his exhibition, his new feature film The Assistant will premiere at the International Film Festival Rotterdam. Made with his wife Anka Sasnal, it is an adaptation of the 1907 eponymous novel by Swiss writer Robert Walser. The story follows a man who takes a job as an assistant to an eccentric engineer inventor, and finds himself in a myriad of ever-changing roles. Despite his prolific nature, the engineer only manages to produce a series of bizarre and impractical inventions that drive him further into debt rather than bringing the fortune he desires. Though written in the early twentieth century, its themes of servitude, ambition, and connection resonate deeply with our current landscape, much like a Wilhelm Sasnal painting.
 
‘Sad Tropics’ runs through March 6, 2025 at Anton Kern Gallery in New York.
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