DAVID VON BECKE
New York’s Tanya Bonakdar Gallery announced today that it represents the collective Slavs and Tatars, which is known for its work that deals with politics and cultural identity in Eurasia. Slavs and Tatars is currently nominated for this year’s Preis der Nationalaglerie, and the news comes on the opening day of a show of work by the nominees at the Hamburger Bahnhof, in Berlin.
Founded in 2006 as a book club, Slavs and Tatars defines its interest as the area “east of the former Berlin Wall and west of the Great Wall of China.” The collective has explored that region’s languages, rituals, and belief systems, usually through humorous combinations of high and low. Written text continues to be a major part of the collective’s practice, though it has also made installations and sculptures and staged lectures.
Slavs and Tatars’ greatest exposure in the United States to date has been a 2012 project for MoMA called Beyonsense, in which a reading room allowed museum visitors to access their print-based material. In addition to their new representation in the United States by Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, the collective is also currently represented in Dubai by the Third Line, in Warsaw by RASTER, and in Berlin by Kraupa-Tuskany Zeidler.