Slavs and Tatars

“Pickles are stupid media,” declared Payam Sharifi of Slavs and Tatars on the opening night of “Pickle Politics.” The deceptively sparse arrangement of works—benches, a carafe of pickle juice, a short video comprising text in Farsi and phonetic Polish, and a horseradish-shaped rug—demonstrate the collective’s tendency to use simple, humorous imagery to access complex issues. Soaked in brine, where bacteria catalyze fermentation, the pickled cucumber, which humans have enjoyed for thousands of years, represents a challenge to the Enlightenment concerns with pasteurizing and purifying in the name

picks May 23, 2019

“Saturnine”

To access Chicago Manual Style, visitors must open a tall gate, walk down a path toward the back of a residential house, and enter a nondescript two-car garage. This lead-up, and the domestic scale of the gallery, perfectly frames the readymade in the center of the room—Antoine Donzeaud’s Pink Monochrome, 2019, a double bed with rosy sheets.

As the centerpiece of the group show “Saturnine,” this work invites visitors to lie down to observe the other works, which draw on the symbology of Albrecht Dürer’s Melencolia I, 1514, an engraving of a brooding, winged figure surrounded by devices and