Beatrix Ruf, Misal Adnan Yıldız and Slavs and Tatars: Simurgh Селф-Xелп (Self-Help), book launch, reading and talk

11 June 2026, 19:00

What does it mean to translate one tradition into another. Can one translate a symbol, an animal, or a even bird? Simurgh Селф-Xелп (Self-Help), Slavs and Tatars’ new book, attempts to answer these questions by revisiting Marcel Broodthaers’ seminal work Musée d’Art Moderne: Département des Aigles (1968–1972): replacing or “translating” the eagle—a symbol of power and empire that is used to challenge our understanding of authority and value—with the Simurgh, a mythical bird found across the Turkic-Persianate world. Whilst the eagle is often associated with nation-states and masculinity, the Simurgh is decidedly transnational, metaphysical, and flamboyant, if not gender-fluid. If modern and contemporary art institutions in Broodthaers’ time were largely situated between the Rhineland and Northeast United States, the multipolarity of today’s art world is a fait accompli: with biennials in Jeddah, museums in Kazakhstan, amongst others, rivaling the traditional centers of power.

Free admission
Language: English
Duration: 90 min

Beatrix Ruf is director of Hartwig Art Foundation in Amsterdam and previous director of Stedelijk and Kunsthalle Zurich. In 1998, Ruf initiated a series of artist commissions for publisher Ringier’s annual report. Simurgh Селф-Xелп is the 2025 edition.

Misal Adnan Yıldız is a curator, researcher and educator. Recently, he co-curated the 20th edition of Mediterrenea, Biennial of Young Artists. Previously, Yıldız was director of Kunsthalle Baden-Baden with Çağla Ilk and Artspace Aotearoa in Auckland, New Zealand.

Slavs and Tatars is an internationally renowned art collective devoted to an area East of the former Berlin Wall and West of the Great Wall of China known as Eurasia. The collective’s practice is based on three activities: exhibitions, books and lecture-performances.