Misal Adnan Yıldız with Slavs and Tatars , “ Simurgh Селф-Xелп (Self-Help) ”, book launch, reading and talk

11 June 2026, 19:00

Simurgh Селф-Xелп (Self-Help), Slavs and Tatars’ newest book, revisits 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.

Since 1998, Ringier, the Swiss-based global media company, has traditionally commissioned an artist to design its annual report. Publisher Michael Ringier and curator Beatrix Ruf initiated this series as a means of reinforcing the links between art and the activities of the company. Simurgh Селф-Xелп is the 2025 edition.

Free admission
Language: English
Duration: 90 min

Misal Adnan Yıldız is a curator, researcher and educator. Recently, Yıldız co-curated the 20th edition of Mediterrenea, Biennial of Young Artists co-organised by BJCEM and ŠKUC as part of GO!25 in Nova Gorica/Gorizia (European Capital of Culture, 2025) featuring 94 positions from 16 countries as the selected international curator with Ljubljana based curator Tia Čiček.

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.