Simurgh, the mythological Eagle

Slavs and Tatars is an art collective named after the peoples living in a vast area of ​​the planet - Eurasia - “an area East of the former Berlin Wall and West of the Great Wall of China”. Founded in 2006 as a collaboration between artists and designers Payam Sharifi and Kasia Korczak, the group’s work focuses on three activities: exhibitions, books and lecture-performances. This exhibition presents a new body of work inspired by Marcel Broodthaers’ Musée d’Art Moderne – Département des Aigles (1968-1972). An imaginary museum that plays the role of a political parody of art exhibitions and an artistic parody of political events, allowing to capture reality and at the same time what lies behind it. Slavs and Tatars undertake an inventive “translation” of the eagle through the lens of the Simurgh, a mythological bird deeply rooted in Turkish and Persian folklore, Sufi traditions, and the literature of the Caucasus and Central Asia. If the eagle serves as a repository for nationalism and empire, rooted in geopolitical concerns, the Simurgh evokes an empire of the senses and a dominion of the otherworldly, bridging the affective dimension.