Slavs and Tatars

Many of Slavs and Tatars’ previous installations, such as RiverBed, 2017, champion books through cozy communal reading spaces. In the largest room of this exhibition, “Sauer Power,” one finds a sharp departure from these earlier works. In Underage Page (siamese), 2018, for instance, the visitor straddles a metal pole at an awkward angle and is forced to stare at the wall like a naughty child, only able to glimpse fellow visitors via peripheral vision. Books are notably absent in the show, though words do populate the room: Changed Names (Ukraine-Evpatoria), 2018, for example, documents the

picks November 12, 2018

Zineb Sedira

Zineb Sedira calls herself a guardian of memories, but in the opening video of her first solo exhibition in Beirut, Don’t do to her what you did to me, 1998–2001, she erases them. The video shows a portrait of a woman submerged in water, until the titular words written on it liquesce into pools of ink, in an aestheticization of destruction. This work, like many others throughout the exhibition, speaks to its surroundings—a city caught between preserving and rebuilding after war.

In her new site-specific installation, Of Words and Stones, 2018, a red line over a row of stones divides the gallery