Simurgh Self-Help: Slavs and Tatars

Simurgh Self-Help is the third solo exhibition by the artist collective Slavs and Tatars at The Third Line. This new body of work draws inspiration from Marcel Broodthaers’ Musée d'Art Moderne - Département des Aigles (1968–1972), a landmark of 20th-century conceptual art, reimagining its critique through a different symbolic lens.

In this exhibition, Slavs and Tatars embark on an inventive ‘translation’ of the eagle—a symbol often tied to power and nationalism—through the figure of the Simurgh, a mythical bird deeply rooted in Turkic and Persianate folklore, Sufi traditions, and the literature of the Caucasus and Central Asia. The Simurgh, both female and male though most often depicted as female, is said to have witnessed the destruction of the world three times over, embodying endurance beyond empire and nationhood.

By juxtaposing the eagle and the Simurgh, Simurgh Self-Help offers a speculative history, crafting an alter-ego for contemporary societies grappling with questions of national identity and the resurgence of nationalism. Through this reimagining, Slavs and Tatars expand Broodthaers’ critique to encompass Central Asia and the Caucasus—regions historically situated between fading empires (Russian, Ottoman, Persian) and contemporary revanchist forces. If the eagle symbolizes geopolitical dominance and imperial ambition, the Simurgh invokes an empire of the senses, a dominion of the otherworldly—bridging the affective with the extractive, the mythic with the material.