SLAVS AND TATARS - ALBERTINUM (2018)
Outset Germany_Switzerland was pleased to acquire „Dresdner Gitter" (2018) by Slavs and Tatars for the collection of Albertinum, Dresden, following their solo exhibition „Made in Dschermany" (2018) at Albertinum.
„Made in Dschermany" extended Slavs and Tatars’ artistic practice into German orientalism, philology and the country’s complex relationship with Islam, through the perspective of four letters: DSCH. As keen observers of epiphenomena–from monobrows to mistranslations–at the Albertinum’s Kunsthalle im Lipsiusbau, the artists shed light on the little-known history of Germany’s relationship with Islam, at a time when issues of faith and identity were increasingly instrumentalised against that very history. A scenography of new sculptural works–crowd control barriers repurposed into social lecterns–formed the centre of the exhibition. Applying their notorious meat grinder of dissonances to various phonemes, „Made in Dschermany" invited us to thoroughly read not only our languages but also ourselves as composite and conflicted subjectivities.
Founded in 2006, the artists’ collective Slavs and Tatars, takes the little-known affinities, syncretic ideas, belief systems and language politics between the former Berlin Wall and the Great Wall of China as a premise for thorough examinations of our present. Their work has been exhibited around the globe, from the MoMA to the Istanbul Modern, the Vienna Secession to the Tate Modern.
ON VIEW: 2nd June — 14th October 2018
