MARCH EXHIBITION Slavs and Tatars Language Arts March 17 - April 17, 2014 The Third Line is pleased to present Language Arts, Slavs and Tatars’ fi

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MARCH EXHIBITION

Slavs and Tatars

Language Arts

March 17 - April 17, 2014

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.

S T Rahle For Richard 2014

Slavs and Tatars, Rahlé for Richard, 2014, Veneer on MDF, 110 x 56 x 180 cm

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.

The march of alphabets has always accompanied that of empires and religions: Latin script along with the Roman Catholic faith; Arabic with Islam and the Caliphate; as well as Cyrillic with Orthodox Christianity, and subsequently the USSR. Within this body of work, it is not peoples or nations that are liberated, but rather phonemes, from attempts to restrain and rein them in.

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; while 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.

Slavs and Tatars often collide those things considered opposites, or incompatible — be it Islam and Communism, metaphysics and humor, or pop culture and geopolitics. From their first publication Kidnapping Mountains (Book Works, 2009) to the more recent Khhhhhhh (Mousse/Moravian Gallery 2012), the collective has consistently turned to language as a tool for disruption, humor, and unexpected meaning. By challenging an understanding of language as exclusively rational or semantic, Slavs and Tatars emphasize its potential to be affective and sensual, concealing as much as it reveals; even becoming a platform for sacred wisdom, rather than a mere vehicle for secular knowledge or profane, everyday use.

The Third Line show will open parallel to MARKER, the artists’ curatorial début, focused on Central Asia and the Caucasus, at Art Dubai.

CURRENT EXHIBITION

Tarek Al-Ghoussein

K Files

January 29 – March 7, 2014

TAG K-Files

Tarek Al-Ghoussein, K Files, Project Space installation view

The Third Line is pleased to exhibit Tarek Al-Ghoussein’s K Files, displayed as part of a two-person show at the first ever Kuwait Pavilion at the 55th Venice Biennale 2013, and showing for the first time outside the biennale. For the Project Space, Tarek puts together an installation of found objects, personal artifacts and newspaper clippings that consider the story of his family life via public forums such as eBay.

THE THIRD LINE AT ART DUBAI

March 19 - 22, 2014
Booth A19

The Third Line is participating in the eighth edition of Art Dubai, exhibiting solo presentations with new works by Farhad Moshiri and Hayv Kahraman. In addition to this, we are pleased to support Abbas Akhavan’s work for the Abraaj Group Art Prize, as well as Slavs and Tatar’s curatorial debut with the Marker project.

FM HK ArtDubai-PR-image

(L) Farhad Moshiri, The Moon, 2014, Hand embroidered beads on canvas, 219 x 174 cm; (R) Hayv Kahraman, Hussein Pasha drawing (detail), 2014, Sumi-e ink and watercolor on paper, 76.2 x 111.7 cm

Returning to Art Dubai, The Third Line is participating alongside more than eighty leading regional and international galleries. Since its establishment in 2007, Art Dubai has come to be recognized as an important art fair in the centre of the Middle East's growing contemporary art community. The Third Line’s booth (A19) is exhibiting two solo presentations – opening with Farhad Moshiri (March 19-20) and followed by Hayv Kahraman (March 21-22) – showing new works by both the artists.

Over almost three decades of his career, Farhad Moshiri has earned a sound reputation as a key contemporary Iranian artist, working with neo-pop iconography that melds together eastern and western aesthetics. For his solo presentation at Art Dubai, Farhad expands upon his playful repertoire with intricate beadwork painstakingly hand-embroidered onto canvas.

Hayv Kahraman delves further into her engagement with the deconstruction of space, interconnected with what she sees as the commodification of the female body. She brings in her personal experiences as an Iraqi émigré to fuel her larger dialogue on how boundaries define spatiality in both physical and human terms. For her solo presentation, Hayv’s drawings on paper and wood panels provide aerial views of the floorplans of typical homes in Baghdad and across Iraq, which have clear demarcations to prevent gender intermixing.

Full Press Release

THE THIRD LINE ARTISTS

Ala-Ebtekar Ascension-III 2009 Acrylic-and-ink-on-book-pages-on-mounted-on-canvas 129.9x205.7cm 650

Ala Ebtekar, Ascension III, 2009, Acrylic and ink on book pages on mounted on canvas, 129.9 x 205.7 cm

Ala Ebtekar

Now Read This | Boise State University Arts Gallery, Idaho, USA | February 20 - October 20, 2014

Titled “Now Read This”, the exhibition comprises 45 works by 39 contemporary artists of international background and reputation from the collection of Driek and Michael Zirinsky.

The works are united by their use of textual elements and by their textural granularity and their inclusion of textile references and components. Just as text, texture and textile all share a common root (the Latin textus means woven), these works all invite the viewer to bring a reader’s close level of examination to their encounter with the work. Pay close attention and you may catch the visual forms of language in their beauty, multiplicity and mutability, in the process of assembling themselves into meaning.

S T carpet

Slavs and Tatars, Mother Tongues and Father Throats, 2012, carpet, 300 × 490 cm (Collection of MoMA, Warsaw)

Slavs and Tatars

As You Can See: Polish Art Today | Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw, Poland | February 20 - June 1, 2014

As You Can See: Polish Art Today is the first show of current Polish art spanning such range for more than a decade. It centres around important works, attitudes, and themes commented on by visual artists over recent years.

The exhibition was designed as a guidebook facilitating the journey across the territory of current art phenomena. It focuses on a specific time and place, and is being held at a rather specific moment: several years after Polish art stabilised its position internationally, and simultaneously to the process of Polish artistic institutions becoming professionalised and rather radical. The current set of circumstances seems to be a dream come true for previous generations of artists, whose presence in the field of art often tied in with a struggle for the shape and form of the art institution, and for the artist’s position in society. The situation itself, however, does not resolve all problems: paradoxically, it leads to the creation of new tensions between institutions and artists, and artists and audiences, respectively. The exhibition is curated by Sebastian Cichocki and Łukasz Ronduda.

«LEKTOR» | Kunsthalle Zurich, Switzerland | February 15 – August 17, 2014

In advance of their fall exhibition, Slavs and Tatars present a new, two-channel audio piece in the future library space of the Kunsthalle. Focusing on the potentials and the pitfalls of language, Lektor features a selection of the 11th century Kutadgu Bilig (Wisdom of Royal Glory) in its original 11th century Uighur with a voice-over in present-day German: by leaving the original voice audible, Lektor creates a space of instability and hospitality within the translation.

HL Discarded 2012-2013 Wall-Installation-Bottle-Caps 250x250-cm detail-2

Huda Lutfi, Discarded (detail), 2012-2013, Wall Installation Bottle Caps, 250 x 250 cm

Huda Lutfi

CREATIVE FUSION: International Artist Residency Program | The Cleveland Foundation, Cleveland, Ohio, USA | March 1 - May 31, 2014

Creative Fusion is an urban-based, community-engaged residency program for international artists created by the Cleveland Foundation. The program consists of two, three-month residencies in Cleveland in the spring and fall each year. Each residency period hosts up to six artists from cultures not well represented currently in Cleveland’s professional arts sector.

Hayv Kahraman

Collective Performance | Nelson Atkins Museum (Atkins Auditorium), Kansas City, USA | March 7, 2014, 6PM

Contemporary artist Hayv Kahraman presents a provocative performance exploring a single artistic perspective through multiple voices that is at once informative, performative and generative.

Collective Performance | Duke University, Durham, NC, USA | March 28, 2014

The 2014 Duke-UNC Middle East Studies Consortium will hold their annual conference on March 27-29, 2014, at Duke University. This year’s conference theme will be ARTS OF REVOLUTION IN THE MIDDLE EAST.

JHKJ  09  War trophy 2006-07 Photographic print on baryte paper 29.5x37.5cm Edof5 and 2APS 650

Joana Hadjithomas & Khalil Joreige, War trophy, 2006-07, Photographic print on baryte paper, 29.5 x 37.5 cm

Tarek Al-Ghoussein, Lamya Gargash, Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige, Hassan Hajjaj, Huda Lutfi, Youssef Nabil

FotoFest 2014 Biennial - Contemporary Arab Photographic Art, Houston, USA | March 15 - April 27, 2014

The FotoFest exhibitions for the 2014 Biennial will focus on Contemporary Arab Video, Photography and Multimedia art. The Biennial will showcase 48 contemporary Arab artists using photography and related visual media to address a broad range of aesthetic and cultural values impacting Arab culture.

Many of these artists deal with the region’s diverse and shifting identities. Change features prominently in their works. The dramatic and tumultuous changes of the past century caused vast upheaval in the social, political, economic and geographic structures of the region. These changes, and the speed with which they occur, have affected their traditional relationships with “homeland” and family, and has generated widespread experience with diaspora and displacement. Memory and loss – of both place and person play a large role in many of the artists’ works.

Zineb Sedira and Youssef Nabil

YN You Never Left I  Diptych  2010 Hand coloured silver print 27x39cm Ed.1of10 650

Youssef Nabil, You Never Left # I, 2010, Hand colored gelatin silver print

The Divine Comedy: Heaven, Hell, Purgatory revisited by Contemporary African Artists | MMK Museum fur Modern Kunst - Frankfurt, Germany | March 21 - July 27, 2014

In "The Divine Comedy: Heaven, Hell, Purgatory revisited by Contemporary African Artists", the MMK will serve as a stage for Dante’s Divine Comedy on 4,500 square metres of exhibition space. His work forms the foundation for the exhibition, developed by curator Simon Njami, and will be presented subsequently at four further venues worldwide.

ZinebSedira GuildingLight Video still 650

Zineb Sedira, Guiding Light, 2013, Video still

On three floors, one each devoted to heaven, hell and purgatory, works in a variety of media will be presented: paintings, photographs, sculptures, videos, installations and performances. Taking their own widely differing cultural and religious backgrounds as a point of departure, the artists will examine individual thematic sequences of the Divine Comedy.

Sophia Al-Maria

GCC: Achievements in Retrospective | MoMA PS1, New York, USA | March 23 - May 25, 2014

Consisting of a “delegation” of nine artists, the GCC makes reference to the English abbreviation of the Gulf Cooperation Council, an economic and political consortium of Arabian Gulf nations. Founded in the VIP lounge of Art Dubai in 2013, the GCC makes use of ministerial language and celebratory rituals associated with the Gulf to create videos, photographs, sculptures, and installations that examine the region’s rapid transformation in recent decades.

This exhibition, their first in the US, is presented in the format of a retrospective. The exhibition’s title, Achievements in Retrospective, intentionally plays with the idiosyncratic grammar reflected in bureaucratic Arabic-English translations as well as the kind of international English pervasive at global summits. As a retrospective for a nascent collaborative, the exhibition offers a prospective view, alluding to works that have yet to be made—not unlike the aspirational nature of some projects in the Gulf.

Global Art Forum 2014 'Meanwhile…History' | Katara Art Center, Building 5, Katara Cultural Village, Doha, Qatar | March 15, 2014, 6-8PM

The eighth edition of the acclaimed Global Art Forum is co-directed by curator-translator Omar Berrada of Dar al-Ma’mun and artist Ala Younis, and commissioned by writer Shumon
Basar. Entitled ‘Meanwhile...History’, the 2014 Global Art Forum is an imagined timeline of turning points in history – significant decades, years, days, minutes or seconds that shifted an
understanding of the world. Some seem familiar. Others are broadcast from history’s blind spots. These coordinates come from the past, are present in our present and reach into the future.

The first evening of the Doha programme of the Global Art Forum 8 is held at Katara Art Centre. Speakers includes: Hans-Ulrich Obrist (Curator, co-director of exhibitions and programmes and director of international projects, Serpentine Gallery), Sophia Al Maria (Artist, writer and filmmaker), and Hisham Qaddumi (Founder of The Arab Architects and HQA Consulting), among others.

ONGOING EXHIBITIONS

Slavs and Tatars
SOFT PICTURES | Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin | October 23, 2013 - March 23, 2014

Golnaz Fathi
Nun Wa Al Qalam - Contemporary Muslim Calligraphy: The Collection of the Islamic Arts Museum Malaysia| Islamic Arts Museum Malaysia | December 12, 2013 - March 12, 2014

Hassan Hajjaj
My RockStars Experimental: Volume 1 | LACMA, Los Angeles, USA | December 21, 2013 - July 20, 2014

Hayv Kahraman and Slavs and Tatars
Neighbours – Contemporary Narratives from Turkey and Beyond | The Istanbul Museum of Modern Art, Istanbul, Turkey | January 9 - May 8, 2014

Zineb Sedira
Ship to Shore: Art and the Lure of the Sea | SeaCity Museum, Southampton, UK | February 8 - May 4, 2014

Abbas Akhavan
CounterIntelligence | Justina M. Barnicke Gallery, University of Toronto | January 24 - March 16, 2014

Ala Ebtekar
The Vastness is Bearable | Museum of Contemporary Art, Santa Barbara | January 25 - December 7, 2014

Hayv Kahraman
ARAB CONTEMPORARY - Architecture, Culture and Identity | Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Gl. Strandvej 13, 3050 Humlebæk, Danemark | January 31 - May 4, 2014

Echoes: Islamic Art and Contemporary Artists | Nelson-Atkins Museum | August 31, 2013 - March 30, 2014

Youssef Nabil
Ri-conoscere Michelangelo | Galleria dell'Accademia, Florence, Italy | February 18 - May 18, 2014

Ebtisam AbdulAziz
The 32nd Annual Exhibition of Emirates Fine Arts Society | Sharjah Art Museum, East Wing | February 19 - April 30, 2014

Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige
Adelaide Internationale 2014: Worlds in collision | Contemporary Art Center of South Australia | February 26 - March 30, 2014

Sophia Al Maria
Bridge Commission Audio Walks | Serpentine Gallery project, London | September 2013 - September 2014

AVAILABLE AT THE THIRD LINE

Slavs and Tatars Friendship of Nations

Slavs and Tatars - FRIENDSHIP OF NATIONS: POLISH SHI'ITE SHOWBIZ

Slavs and Tatars - FRIENDSHIP OF NATIONS: POLISH SHI'ITE SHOWBIZ

Published 2013

Beginning as an investigation into the disparate events that bookend the 20th and 21st century — the collapse of Communism and the Islamic Revolution in Iran — Friendship of Nations: Polish Shi’ite Showbiz traces unlikely points of convergence in Iran and Poland’s economic, social, political, religious and cultural histories. Drawing on Slavs and Tatars’ multi-disciplinary practice encompassing research, installations, lecture-performances and print media, this publication embraces new contributions on subjects that range from 17st century Sarmatism to the 21st century Green Movement.

Published by Book Works/Sharjah Art Foundation | English, Soft Cover | ISBN: 9781906012427

TTL-Sep-12-225

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