Contemporary Project: Tavares Strachan
Saturday, November 9, 2024 - Sunday, June 1, 2025
Tavares Strachan’s artworks intentionally defy categorization.
Spanning sculpture, performance, painting, ceramics, and immersive installations, Strachan’s work explores themes of cultural displacement, migration, and human aspiration by uplifting often hidden histories.
At the Blanton, Strachan transforms the Contemporary Project gallery into a waist-high ‘meadow’ of dried rice grass. Rice is a staple of the Afro-Caribbean diet and connects the people and histories of the African diaspora with African societies. Viewed from above, the terrain shapes the form of a Ghanaian Adinkra symbol. A West African system of writing through symbols, Adinkra represent concepts or aphorisms. They are deeply tied to the philosophy of West Africa and have over the centuries contributed to preserving West African history, stories, and values. Here, Strachan uses the Andikra symbol Mmere Dane, or “time changes,” which articulates the spiritual and philosophical concept of impermanence. At the center of the rice meadow sits a large-scale ceramic sculpture.
Much of Strachan’s practice is connected to an ongoing research project, "The Encyclopedia of Invisibility." This over 3,000-page opus documents people, events, and ideas that didn’t typically make it into mainstream encyclopedias. Through this project, Strachan questions the construction of historically canonized narratives that marginalize or obscure others while bringing unseen histories and important stories into the light. A version of the "Encyclopedia" will be on view in the exhibition.
In addition to the room-sized installation, three sculptures from Strachan’s "Black Madonna" series will be on view in the Blanton’s European art galleries. These sculptures are based on a common iconography in Christian art known as the Pietà, in which Mary holds the dead body of her son Jesus. Strachan’s sculptures depict important Black man from history who were violently quieted, held by their mothers. Here, he shifts the poignant poses and figures away from a religious framework and towards a narrative of maternal and community loss.
Tavares Strachan was born in 1979 in Nassau, Bahamas, and currently lives and works between New York City and Nassau. He received a BFA in Glass from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2003 and an MFA in Sculpture from Yale University in 2006. He has been the recipient of numerous awards including the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation fellowship (2022), 2019-20 Artist in Residence at the Getty Research Institute, 2018 Frontier Art Prize, 2014 LACMA Art + Technology Lab Artist Grant. Strachan’s work has been featured in numerous solo exhibitions and biennials including Prospect 3. Biennial, New Orleans; Biennale de Lyon, Lyon, France, The Bahamas National Pavilion at the 55th Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy; MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge, MA; and The Hayward Gallery in London, England. His work is in numerous public collections, including the Blanton Museum of Art.
Organized by Hannah Klemm, Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, Blanton Museum of Art.
Tavares Strachan is organized by the Blanton Museum of Art.
Gallery TextSpanning sculpture, performance, painting, ceramics, and immersive installations, Strachan’s work explores themes of cultural displacement, migration, and human aspiration by uplifting often hidden histories.
At the Blanton, Strachan transforms the Contemporary Project gallery into a waist-high ‘meadow’ of dried rice grass. Rice is a staple of the Afro-Caribbean diet and connects the people and histories of the African diaspora with African societies. Viewed from above, the terrain shapes the form of a Ghanaian Adinkra symbol. A West African system of writing through symbols, Adinkra represent concepts or aphorisms. They are deeply tied to the philosophy of West Africa and have over the centuries contributed to preserving West African history, stories, and values. Here, Strachan uses the Andikra symbol Mmere Dane, or “time changes,” which articulates the spiritual and philosophical concept of impermanence. At the center of the rice meadow sits a large-scale ceramic sculpture.
Much of Strachan’s practice is connected to an ongoing research project, "The Encyclopedia of Invisibility." This over 3,000-page opus documents people, events, and ideas that didn’t typically make it into mainstream encyclopedias. Through this project, Strachan questions the construction of historically canonized narratives that marginalize or obscure others while bringing unseen histories and important stories into the light. A version of the "Encyclopedia" will be on view in the exhibition.
In addition to the room-sized installation, three sculptures from Strachan’s "Black Madonna" series will be on view in the Blanton’s European art galleries. These sculptures are based on a common iconography in Christian art known as the Pietà, in which Mary holds the dead body of her son Jesus. Strachan’s sculptures depict important Black man from history who were violently quieted, held by their mothers. Here, he shifts the poignant poses and figures away from a religious framework and towards a narrative of maternal and community loss.
Tavares Strachan was born in 1979 in Nassau, Bahamas, and currently lives and works between New York City and Nassau. He received a BFA in Glass from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2003 and an MFA in Sculpture from Yale University in 2006. He has been the recipient of numerous awards including the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation fellowship (2022), 2019-20 Artist in Residence at the Getty Research Institute, 2018 Frontier Art Prize, 2014 LACMA Art + Technology Lab Artist Grant. Strachan’s work has been featured in numerous solo exhibitions and biennials including Prospect 3. Biennial, New Orleans; Biennale de Lyon, Lyon, France, The Bahamas National Pavilion at the 55th Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy; MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge, MA; and The Hayward Gallery in London, England. His work is in numerous public collections, including the Blanton Museum of Art.
Organized by Hannah Klemm, Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, Blanton Museum of Art.
Tavares Strachan is organized by the Blanton Museum of Art.
Tavares Strachan’s expansive approach to making art is situated within a visual language of storytelling. Through this language, his work expresses the affinities, contradictions, and dependencies within often untold stories, while drawing attention to the space between the disciplines of art, science, history, exploration, and collective memory. Strachan describes his work as an “infinite protest” against the benchmarks and boundaries of convention. His immersive installations, performances, ceramics, paintings, and sculptures become tools to investigate a sense of belonging.
Much of Strachan’s current practice is connected to an ongoing conceptual project, The Encyclopedia of Invisibility, a version of which is on display in this gallery. The Encyclopedia and its research fuels the artist’s persistent questioning of which narratives and perspectives have been relegated to the historical wayside. The works in this show—from the immersive installation here to the three sculptures from the artist’s Black Madonna series installed in the nearby European galleries—summon the power of these historical and cultural references.
Strachan has transformed the Contemporary Project gallery into a “meadow” of dried rice grass. While rice is a fundamental component of the Afro-Caribbean diet, it is also a staple across the world. As a food group, its universality asks fundamental questions about the culinary threads that run through civilization, space, and time. Viewed from above, the terrain takes the form of an Adinkra symbol, a West African ideographic character. Derived from a wide variety of sources--proverbs, historical events, the shapes of everyday objects, human behaviors, philosophies, gestures, animals, and plants--Adinkra symbols express complex ideas about community, interdependence, and the metaphysical relationships we have to earth, God, and each other. They prompt one’s imagination of what language can describe far beyond the limitations imposed by a writing system derived from the spoken word.
For this installation Strachan uses the Adinkra symbol Mmere Dane, or “time changes,” which articulates the spiritual and philosophical concept of impermanence. At the center of the rice meadow sits a large ceramic sculpture of stacked objects referencing the Jamaican political activist Marcus Garvey.
Throughout the exhibition, the artist invites viewers to consider how history is recorded, what kind of cultural knowledge is legitimized, and by whom. Through these questions, he creates artworks that expose the very nature of invisibility, bringing to the fore what has been commonly erased.
El enfoque integral de Tavares Strachan en cuanto a la creación artística se sitúa dentro de un lenguaje visual de la narrativa. Por medio de este lenguaje, su obra expresa las afinidades, las contradicciones y las dependencias que contienen historias muchas veces no contadas, al tiempo que dirige la atención hacia el espacio existente entre las disciplinas del arte, la ciencia, la historia, la exploración y la memoria colectiva. Strachan describe su obra como una «protesta infinita» contra los referentes y los límites de lo convencional. Sus instalaciones inmersivas, performances, cerámicas, pinturas y esculturas se convierten en herramientas para investigar un sentido de pertenencia.
Gran parte de la práctica actual de Strachan está conectada con un Proyecto conceptual en curso, The Encyclopedia of Invisibility [La enciclopedia de la invisibilidad]. En esta galería encontrará expuesta una versión de este proyecto. La Encyclopedia y su investigación alimentan el cuestionamiento persistente del artista en torno a qué narrativas y perspectivas han sido relegadas al ámbito histórico. Las obras de esta exhibición (desde la instalación inmersiva hasta las tres esculturas de la serie Black Madonna [La Madona negra] del artista instaladas en las galerías europeas cercanas) aglutinan el poder de estas referencias históricas y culturales.
Strachan ha transformado la galería del Proyecto Contemporáneo en un «prado» de plantas de arroz secas. Aunque el arroz es un ingrediente fundamental de la dieta afrocaribeña, también es un alimento básico en todo el mundo. Como grupo alimentario, su universalidad plantea cuestiones fundamentales acerca de los hilos culinarios que recorren la civilización, el espacio y el tiempo. Visto desde arriba, el terreno adopta la forma de un símbolo de Adinkra, un carácter ideográfico de África Occidental. Los símbolos de Adinkra, procedentes de muy diversas fuentes (formas de objetos cotidianos, comportamientos humanos, filosofías, gestos, animales y plantas) expresan ideas complejas acerca de la comunidad, la interdependencia y las relaciones metafísicas que mantenemos con la tierra, con Dios y entre nosotros. Inspiran nuestra imaginación en cuanto a lo que el lenguaje puede describir más allá de las limitaciones impuestas por un sistema de escritura derivado de la palabra oral.
Para la instalación, Strachan utiliza el símbolo de Adinkra «Mmere Dane», o «el tiempo cambia», que articula el concepto espiritual y filosófico de impermanencia. En el centro del prado de arroz se encuentra una gran escultura de cerámica a base de objetos apilados que hacen referencia al activista político jamaiquino Marcus Garvey.
En toda la exhibición, el artista invita a los espectadores a considerar de qué manera se registra la historia, qué tipo de conocimiento cultural se legitima y quién lo lleva a cabo. A través de estos cuestionamientos, crea obras de arte que exponen la naturaleza misma de la invisibilidad, poniendo en primer plano lo que habitualmente ha sido borrado.