Slavs and Tatars
Language Arts
March 17–April 17, 2014
The Third Line
Al Quoz 3
Dubai
UAE
T +9714 3411 367
www.thethirdline.com
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The Third Line is pleased to present Language Arts, Slavs and Tatars’ first solo show in the Middle East. Following a run of internationally acclaimed museum shows and publications, the artists’ performative use of language takes a new turn, with an exploration of alphabet politics.
Slavs and Tatars’ recent work turns to language as a source of political, metaphysical, even sexual emancipation. With their trademark mix of high and low registers, ribald humor and esoteric discourse, the collective addresses the thorny issue of alphabet politics and attempts by nations, cultures, and ideologies to ascribe a specific set of letters to a given language.
Language Arts celebrates language in all its polyphonic glory, with original works in Persian, Russian, Turkish, Georgian and English. A new series of sculptures, installations, textiles and printed matter address a range of subjects: from name changes, in Love Me Love Me Not, to the orality of language, with Rahlé for Richard. The Trannie Tease vacuum forms present transliteration—the conversion of scripts—as the linguistic equivalent of transvestism: a strategy equally of resistance and research in notions of identity politics, colonialism, and liturgical reform. The Love Letters carpets address the issue of manipulation of alphabets across Arabic, Latin and Cyrillic, through the Russian Revolution’s most well-known, if conflicted, poet-champion, Vladimir Mayakovsky.
The Third Line show will open parallel to MARKER, the artists’ curatorial debut, focused on Central Asia and the Caucasus, at Art Dubai.
About Slavs and Tatars
Founded in 2006, Slavs and Tatars is a faction of polemics and intimacies devoted to an area east of the former Berlin Wall and west of the Great Wall of China known as Eurasia. The collective’s work spans several media, disciplines, and a broad spectrum of cultural registers (high and low) focusing on an oft-forgotten sphere of influence between Slavs, Caucasians and Central Asians.
Slavs and Tatars has had solo exhibitions at major institutions including MoMA, New York; Secession, Vienna; REDCAT, Los Angeles; and upcoming solo exhibitions at Kunsthalle Zurich, Dallas Museum of Art, and GfZK, Leipzig. Group exhibitions include Centre Pompidou, Paris; Palais de Tokyo, Paris; Palais de Beaux Arts, Paris; Tate Modern, London; Salt, Istanbul; Istanbul Modern; and 10th Sharjah, 3rd Mercosul, and 9th Gwangju Biennials.
Slavs and Tatars has published Kidnapping Mountains (Book Works, 2009), Love Me, Love Me Not: Changed Names (onestar press, 2010), Not Moscow Not Mecca (Revolver/Secession, 2012), Khhhhhhh (Mousse/Moravia Gallery, 2012) as well as their translation of the legendary Azeri satire Molla Nasreddin: the magazine that would’ve, could’ve, should’ve (JRP-Ringier, 2011); and most recently Friendship of Nations: Polish Shi’ite Showbiz (Bookworks/Sharjah Art Foundation, 2013).
Their works are in collections including The Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw; Re Rebaudengo Foundation, Turin and The Sharjah Art Foundation, UAE, among others.
About The Third Line
The Third Line is a Dubai based art gallery that represents contemporary Middle Eastern artists locally, regionally and internationally. The Third Line also hosts non-profit, alternative programs to increase interest and dialogue in the region. In addition to this, The Third Line publishes books by associated artists from the region.
Represented artists include Abbas Akhavan, Ala Ebtekar, Amir H. Fallah, Arwa Abouon, Babak Golkar, Ebtisam Abdulaziz, Farhad Moshiri, Fouad Elkoury, Golnaz Fathi, Hassan Hajjaj, Hayv Kahraman, Huda Lutfi, Joana Hadjithomas & Khalil Joreige, Laleh Khorramian, Lamya Gargash, Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian, Pouran Jinchi, Rana Begum, Sahand Hesamiyan, Sara Naim, Sherin Guirguis, Shirin Aliabadi, Slavs and Tatars, Sophia Al-Maria, Tarek Al-Ghoussein, Youssef Nabil and Zineb Sedira.
Media contact
Saira Ansari, PR & Media Manager
saira [at] thethirdline.com / T +9714 3411 367
