In 1983, Czech writer Milan Kundera defined Central Europe as those states that historically and culturally belonged to the West, but had been politically assigned to the Eastern Bloc in the geopolitical wrangling of the Cold War. His notable essay “The Stolen West” (1983) accentuated the shared cultural heritage of the countries on both sides of the Iron Curtain and held a strategic value in defying communism. Today, over two decades after the fall of Berlin Wall and almost a decade after the European Union’s border shifted eastward, such designations sound woefully outdated. Yet the artistic collective Slavs and Tatars locate their geographical interest “east of the former Berlin Wall and west of the Great Wall of China.” Their first solo show in Warsaw is dedicated to linguistic complexities and what is lost (or gained) in translation. But what strategies lurk behind their approach? In the center of the gallery stands a peculiar structure made of wood, a takhit, a type of furniture found in tea houses, kiosks, or restaurants across Central Asia.

It resembles a bed, but lacks a mattress or upholstery and is covered instead with patterned rugs. Here it acts as a reading platform, with Slavs and Tatars’s publications placed casually on it. In their practice takhits, tent-like tea salons, small shrines, or flying carpets (like PrayWay (2012) at the New Museum’s Triennial in New York this year) are meant to bring in an impression of public space, hospitality, and generosity. But they’re less known for their lounges, I suppose, than for research that finds form through lectures, books, and various types of artifacts. Steeped in geographically specific humor, their works go against constructing a homogenous picture of the East, emphasizing rather the idiosyncrasies and curiosities. The superficial similarities they uncover lead to crackpot theories, bilingual puns, and pure absurdities. Take the globe Slavs and Tatars fashioned, for instance, in which the Earth is substituted with an enlarged quince. The word dunya is the Arabic and Turkish word for “world” which, in turn, sounds similar to dunja (quince) in Serbo-Croatian.

(The work is meant to bury a hatchet between the Turks and Serbs.) The exhibition’s title “Too Much Tłumacz” includes a homophonic translation too. “Too much” sounds like the Polish word for “translator.” So the title, if you can read both languages, would read “too much translating.” In the work Dig the Booty (2012) the aphorism “Dig the booty of the monoglots, but marry, my child, a polyglot” is transliterated into Latin, Cyrillic and Farsi, in homage to the circuitous paths of Azeri language, which in the twentieth century went through three transliterations imposed by various authorities. garson dad curtainsConsequently, generations of Azeris speak the same language, but read books written in three different alphabets.jakarta aloe curtains While the artists’ statement disapproves of the power of translation, they themselves employ it incessantly. jeff banks curtain stockists

The walls around the takhit are hung with rugs, carpets, and prints, all using texts (at least bilingual, if not more) contributing to an incomprehensible linguistic brew. In the adjacent room, large-scale mirrors are painted over with short paraphrases of idioms and titles of popular books, referring to the countries or cities of the regions Slavs and Tatars are interested in. Looking at my own reflection, I learned for instance that “Men are from Murmansk / Women are from Vilnius,” or “Once a Tease, Always a Kyrgyz.” curtains maurice kainLet’s call the whole thing off!where to buy curtain fabric in divisoria As most of the works in the show are remnants of previous larger projects of the collective, they all needed extended captions (which were, unfortunately, missing). eclipse barrington curtains

While a globe-quince is funny, to reach the deeper meaning one needs to plow through the collective’s books on the takhit (in this case Not Moscow Not Mecca) or attend their lectures. While the research results in books, the artworks turn out to be merely its by-products. What remains is an aura of luring exoticism: Sinbad the Sailor meets accretions of unfathomable convoluted oriental writings. In their project comparing Iranian Revolution of 1979 and the breakdown of communism in Poland in 1989 (Friendship of Nations: Polish Shi’ite Showbiz, 2011), Slavs and Tatars delved even deeper into the past, referring to Sarmatism, a cultural formation in Baroque-era Poland, based on the conviction that Polish nobility descended from a long-lost Iranian tribe of the Black Sea, the Sarmatians. blackout curtains gautengSupposedly, the Polish inherited their “national characteristics”—such as their love of freedom, hospitality, and courage—from them.

But Slavs and Tatars themselves concoct similar myths. In Poland, their quixotic work serves almost as a reminder of these forgotten Eastern ties, served up as an exotic remnant proffering both wisdom and colorful decoration. In other words: intriguing—but also a little superficial. The exhibition at Raster opened during Warsaw Gallery Weekend, which aimed to galvanize a fledgling Polish art market and bring it into the broader Western spectrum. Paradoxically, no artist or collective suits this goal better than Slavs and Tatars. But to escape the dense cobweb they spin, let’s quote the Gershwins: Potato, potahto! Aperture Science is a scientific research company founded by Cave Johnson. Portal and Portal 2 take place in Aperture Science's Enrichment Center, which is dedicated to endlessly testing the Aperture Science products and the humans that use them. Newspaper reporting the purchase of the salt mine Aperture Science was founded as Aperture Fixtures in the early 1940s by Cave Johnson.

Aperture Fixtures was primarily dedicated to the manufacture and distribution of shower curtains – a low-tech portal between the inside and outside of a shower – with Cave Johnson winning the "Shower Curtain Salesman of 1943" award. Some time between 1943 and 1947 the company's name was changed to "Aperture Science Innovators". While this was initially done to make their shower curtains sound more hygienic, the company's focus would indeed soon shift to actual science. Cave Johnson purchased a large, abandoned salt mine in Upper Michigan in which Aperture Science's Enrichment Center would be built; however, there was at least one alternate location in Cleveland, Ohio. Throughout the late 1940s and the 1950s, Aperture Science would begin its comprehensive testing and research practices. The best possible test subjects, the likes of Olympians, astronauts and war heroes were first chosen. They were also the second largest contractor after Black Mesa for the Department of Defense from 1952 to 1954.

Aperture's developments in this period included Repulsion Gel, the Weighted Storage Cube, the 1500 Megawatt Super Colliding Super Button and the Aperture Science Portable Quantum Tunneling Device, an early and significantly larger version of the modern Portal Gun. In 1968, Cave Johnson attending court hearings regarding Aperture Science's involvement with the disappearances of astronauts, likely due to many of them not returning from testing. By the 1970s, Aperture Science was financially unstable. The Olympians, astronauts and war heroes that were used as test subjects were replaced with vagrants who were paid $60 for their time. Aperture Science would continue its research and created Propulsion Gel. In the 1980s, test participation became mandatory for all staff, raising the quality of the test subjects, but diminishing employee retention. Aperture's financial problems were severe at this time, but development continued. Moon rocks were used to create Conversion Gel, an efficient portal conductor.