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Slavs and Tatars: Dresdener Gitter, 2018

A crowd barrier with little stools, seat cushions and lecterns? It sounds absurd – but rather aptly describes this work. This sculpture by the Berlin-based art collective Slavs and Tatars is clearly inspired by a device for crowd control known in German as a ‘Hamburger Gitter’. Such barriers are often found at large open-air events. In their title ‘Dresdener Gitter’, Slavs and Tatars reference very concrete events in Dresden over the last years – the protests by right-wing nationalist circles which have deeply divided society here.

However, that is only one reading of this work. Founded in 2006, the art collective often dissolves issues from their original contexts and locates them in new ones – often chosen uninhibitedly, ironically fractured, and entertainingly set between highbrow and pop culture. In this way, a crowd barrier becomes a museum’s art work – and a place to sit, read and exchange views. The book supports recall the lecterns for the holy books in churches, synagogues and mosques – and so also evoke a time before printing, when reading was the province of just a few learned scholars and books were regarded as almost sacred.

Slavs and Tatars were initially a reading group, which explains their considerable interest in literature and language. The collective’s members refer to themselves as ‘archaeologists of the everyday’, researching into traditions, religions and identities, and taking up current debates. They focus exclusively on the history, culture and politics of Eurasia – a region which the Slavs and Tatars artists’ collective defines as west of the Great Wall of China and east of the Berlin Wall, which stood until 1989.