Installation view of “Tavares Strachan: There Is Light Somewhere,” Hayward Gallery, London, UK, 2024. Shown, TAVARES STRACHAN, “Ruin of a Giant (Marcus Garvey),” 2024. | Photo by Mark Blower, Courtesy the artist and Hayward Gallery
A FORMIDABLE SCULPTURE of Black Nationalist Marcus Garvey’s head is stationed out front of Hayward Gallery at Southbank Centre in London, announcing the first mid-career survey of Tavares Strachan (b. 1979). Born in the Bahamas and based in New York, Strachan’s ambitious practice celebrates overlooked Black history and important unsung heroes who have shaped world culture, science, and technology.
He visualizes and showcases under-known trailblazers and lost moments with audacious and visionary projects. Strachan launched a sculpture into space aboard a Space X flight in 2018, for example, to bring attention to Robert Henry Lawrence Jr. (1935-1967), the first African American astronaut selected for a national space program. Earlier in his practice, for a project called “The Distance Between What We Have and What We Want (Arctic Ice Project)” (2004-06), Trachan used a four-and-a-half-ton block of ice to explore themes of “displacement and interdependency.” The artist has also created his own encyclopedia.
“Tavares Strachan: There Is Light Somewhere,” the current exhibition at Hayward Gallery, presents several bodies of work across two decades, including immersive installations, sculptures, collage, and neon works. In addition, a large-scale replica of a ship from Garvey’s Black Star Line is installed outside the gallery, floating on a terrace flooded with water.
The encyclopedia is on view, too. “The Encyclopedia of Invisibility” (2018) is an enormous, leather-bound volume that contains more than 17,000 entries devoted to people, place, and events at once marginalized, extraordinary, and largely forgotten by history. Excerpts from the encyclopedia are represented by a illuminated, wall-to-wall installation featuring pages from the work.
Encyclopedia Paintings by Strachan are striking collage works composed of a medley of images. Intergalactic Palace (2024) is a newly commissioned work that grew out of the artists’s experience in the ancient Kingdom of Buganda in Uganda. A thatched-hut structure featuring a sound and light installation called “Sonic Encyclopedia,” the work explores the origins of Black music.
“Referencing numerous histories, people, objects and belief systems that lie outside the often narrow parameters of Western contemporary art, Tavares’ exhibition offers revelatory lessons that profoundly shift our view of the world.” — Hayward Gallery Director Ralph Rugoff
“Distant Relatives” (2020) unites tribal masks from various regions of Africa and Papua New Guinea with Strachan’s plaster busts of Black cultural figures such as James Baldwin, Nina Simone, Steven Biko, Haile Selassie, and Jamaican-British nurse and businesswoman Mary Jane Seacole. Meanwhile, a fuchsia neon work on the facade of the gallery declares: You Belong Here.
“There Is Light Somewhere takes visitors on a thrilling and deeply felt journey of discovery and recovery,” Hayward Gallery Director Ralph Rugoff said in the exhibition announcement. “Referencing numerous histories, people, objects and belief systems that lie outside the often narrow parameters of Western contemporary art, Tavares’ exhibition offers revelatory lessons that profoundly shift our view of the world. Through surprising juxtapositions, stirring memorials, and inventive homages, his work extends an invitation to dig deeper and explore what lies beyond what we already know.” CT
IMAGE: Above right, Portrait of Tavares Strachan. | Photo by Miho Suzuki, Courtesy the artist
“Tavares Strachan: There Is Light Somewhere” is on view at Hayward Gallery at Southbank Centre in London, UK, from June 18-Sept. 1, 2024
FIND MORE about Tavares Strachan on his website, Instagram, and at Marian Goodman Gallery
TAVARES STRACHAN, “Inner Elder (Nina Simone as Queen of Sheba),” 2023 (ceramic, 39 ⅜ h x 23 ⅝ w x 23 ⅝ d inches / 100 x 60 x 60 cm). | Courtesy the Artist and Marian Goodman Gallery
TAVARES STRACHAN, “Every Tongue Shall Confess,” 2019 (2 panels: oil, enamel, and pigment on acrylic, 84 x 42 x 2 inches / 213.4 x 106.7 x 5.1 cm, each; 84 x 84 x 2 inches / 213.4 x 213.4 x 5.1 cm, overall). | Courtesy the artist, Photo by Miho Suzuki
Installation view of “Tavares Strachan: There Is Light Somewhere,” Hayward Gallery, London, UK, 2024. Shown, TAVARES STRACHAN, “Invisibility Paintings,” 2018-23. | Photo by Mark Blower, Courtesy the artist and Hayward Gallery
Installation view of “Tavares Strachan: There Is Light Somewhere,” Hayward Gallery, London, UK, 2024. Shown, TAVARES STRACHAN, “Game and Board (Marsha P. Johnson),” 2023. | Photo by Mark Blower, Courtesy the artist and Hayward Gallery
Installation view of “Tavares Strachan: There Is Light Somewhere,” Hayward Gallery, London, UK, 2024. Shown, TAVARES STRACHAN, “Head and Pot (Mary Seacole: The Ram),” 2023. | Photo by Mark Blower, Courtesy the artist and Hayward Gallery
“My practice as an artist is a quest to reveal hidden histories and to tell lost stories with a weight that matches the profound nature of the characters I speak for. I have always thought about making as a form of storytelling, a way for us to engage in things that might be more difficult to grasp during the normal course of our day.” — Tavares Strachan
Installation view of “Tavares Strachan: There Is Light Somewhere,” Hayward Gallery, Southbank Centre, London, UK, 2024. Shown, TAVARES STRACHAN, “Black Star,” 2024. | Photo by Mark Blower, Courtesy the artist and Hayward Gallery
Installation view of “Tavares Strachan: There Is Light Somewhere,” Hayward Gallery, Southbank Centre, London, UK, 2024. Shown, TAVARES STRACHAN, “Black Star,” 2024. | Photo by Mark Blower, Courtesy the artist and Hayward Gallery
Installation view of “Tavares Strachan: There Is Light Somewhere,” Hayward Gallery, Southbank Centre, London, UK, 2024. Shown, TAVARES STRACHAN, “A Map of the Crown (Unknown African ca.1960),” 2023, and TAVARES STRACHAN, “Mind Field No. 5,” 2023. | Photo by Mark Blower, Courtesy the artist and Hayward Gallery
Installation view of “Tavares Strachan: There Is Light Somewhere,” Hayward Gallery, Southbank Centre, London, UK, 2024. Shown, Installation view of TAVARES STRACHAN, “A Map of the Crown series,” 2022-24, and TAVARES STRACHAN, “Mind Fields series,” 2023-24. | Photo by Mark Blower, Courtesy the artist and the Hayward Gallery
Installation view of “Tavares Strachan: There Is Light Somewhere,” Hayward Gallery, Southbank Centre, London, UK, 2024. Shown, TAVARES STRACHAN, Detail of “The Encyclopedia of Invisibility,” 2014-18, and TAVARES STRACHAN, “Six Thousand Years,” 2018. | Photo by Mark Blower, Courtesy the artist and Hayward Gallery
Installation view of “Tavares Strachan: There Is Light Somewhere,” Hayward Gallery, Southbank Centre, London, UK, 2024. Shown, TAVARES STRACHAN, “The Encyclopedia of Invisibility,” 2014-18, and TAVARES STRACHAN, “Six Thousand Years,” 2018. | Photo by Mark Blower, Courtesy the artist and Hayward Gallery
Installation view of “Tavares Strachan: There Is Light Somewhere,” Hayward Gallery, Southbank Centre, London, UK, 2024. Shown, TAVARES STRACHAN, “Ruin of a Giant (King Tubby),” 2024. | Photo by Mark Blower, Courtesy the artist and the Hayward Gallery
Installation view of “Tavares Strachan: There Is Light Somewhere,” Hayward Gallery, Southbank Centre, London, UK, 2024. Shown, From left, TAVARES STRACHAN, “Intergalactic Palace,” 2024. | Photo by Mark Blower, Courtesy the artist and Hayward Gallery
Installation view of “Tavares Strachan: There Is Light Somewhere,” Hayward Gallery, Southbank Centre, London, UK, 2024. Shown, TAVARES STRACHAN, “Intergalactic Palace,” 2024, and TAVARES STRACHAN, “Ruin of a Giant (King Tubby),” 2024. | Photo by Mark Blower, Courtesy the artist and Hayward Gallery
Installation view of “Tavares Strachan: There Is Light Somewhere,” Hayward Gallery, Southbank Centre, London, UK, 2024. Shown, TAVARES STRACHAN, “Robert,” 2018. | Photo by Mark Blower, Courtesy the artist and Hayward Gallery
Installation view of “Tavares Strachan: There Is Light Somewhere,” Hayward Gallery, Southbank Centre, London, UK, 2024. Shown, TAVARES STRACHAN, “Jah Rastafari with Rice Field (Stacked with Pineapple, Shield and Football),” 2023. | Photo by Mark Blower, Courtesy the artist and Hayward Gallery
Installation view of “Tavares Strachan: There Is Light Somewhere,” Hayward Gallery, Southbank Centre, London, UK, 2024. Shown, TAVARES STRACHAN, “Matthew Henson (Hunter’s Shirt Stacked with Football and Spear),” 2023. | Photo by Mark Blower, Courtesy the artist and Hayward Gallery
Installation view of “Tavares Strachan: There Is Light Somewhere,” Hayward Gallery, Southbank Centre, London, UK, 2024. Shown, TAVARES STRACHAN, “Invisibility Paintings,” 2018-23. | Photo by Mark Blower, Courtesy the artist and Hayward Gallery
Installation view of “Tavares Strachan: There Is Light Somewhere,” Hayward Gallery, Southbank Centre, London, UK, 2024. Shown, TAVARES STRACHAN, “Invisibility Paintings,” 2018-23. | Photo by Mark Blower, Courtesy the artist and Hayward Gallery
Installation view of “Tavares Strachan: There Is Light Somewhere,” Hayward Gallery, Southbank Centre, London, UK, 2024. Shown, TAVARES STRACHAN, Exploration room. | Photo by Mark Blower, Courtesy the artist and Hayward Gallery
Installation view of “Tavares Strachan: There Is Light Somewhere,” Hayward Gallery, Southbank Centre, London, UK, 2024. Shown, TAVARES STRACHAN, “Distant Relatives series,” 2020. | Photo by Mark Blower, Courtesy the artist and Hayward Gallery
Installation view of “Tavares Strachan: There Is Light Somewhere,” Hayward Gallery, Southbank Centre, London, UK, 2024. Shown, TAVARES STRACHAN, “There is a Light in Darkness,” 2024. | Photo by Mark Blower, Courtesy the artist and Hayward Gallery
Installation view of “Tavares Strachan: There Is Light Somewhere,” Hayward Gallery, Southbank Centre, London, UK, 2024. Shown, TAVARES STRACHAN, “You Belong Here,” 2014 (neon). | Photo by Mark Blower, Courtesy the artist and Hayward Gallery
BOOKSHELF
“Tavares Strachan: There Is Light Somewhere” is published on the occasion of the artist’s mid-career survey at Hayward Gallery in London. “Tavares Strachan: The Awakening” and “Tavares Strachan: In Total Darkness” were produced earlier this year by the artist’s gallery, Marian Goodman Gallery. “Tavares Strachan: In Plain Sight” was published by the gallery in 2022. Also consider, “Tavares Strachan: I Belong Here (CONCEPTIO UNLIM),” “Tavares Strachan: Seen/Unseen,” and “Tavares Strachan: Orthostatic Tolerance: It Might Not Be Such a Bad Idea if I Never Went Home.”
