TAVARES STRACHAN

Strachan’s work summons historical and cultural references, creating essential contextual collisions andconnections to his celebrated, ongoing research project, The Encyclopedia of Invisibility. For thisexhibition, a central installation from the Encyclopedia forefronts the surrounding gallery spaces,bringing light to a number of ‘invisible histories’ that have largely fallen by the historical wayside. Aspecial, smaller format of the Encyclopedia in book form will also be on view. Nearby, a new work inneon, There is a Light in Darkness, draws on the words of James Baldwin and serves as the source for theaudio work that can be heard throughout the exhibition space.

In the Seward Gallery, a vast and transportive earthen floor grounds two near-life-sized ceramicsculptures, Matthew Henson (Hunter’s Shirt Stacked with Football and Spear) and Andrea Crabtree(Potter’s Shirt Stacked with Diver’s Helmet), representing the figures of Matthew Henson, the AfricanAmerican explorer who discovered the North Pole, and Andrea Motley Crabtree, the first AfricanAmerican female diver for the U.S. Navy. Themes intrinsic to Strachan’s practice—ranging fromhuman aspiration to the chronicle of elided histories—are evoked here through depictions of Arcticexploration and deep-sea discovery. Clay, as integral to human evolution and the creation story, isfound repeatedly throughout the exhibition, from the Seward Gallery floor to the numerous ceramicsculptures on view.

In an intimate space of the main lobby sits Amina (A Map of the Crown), a bronze bust sculptureadorned with a traditional West African hairstyle. The closeness of these materials ofers an insightfulreconciliation of the distance between the deeply personal, political, and present nature of hair and thevenerable qualities bestowed upon bronze sculpture—some of the earliest and most accomplishedbronze works date to Africa in the 10th century. A new series of paintings also debuts here. Mind FieldNo. 1 sits in dialogue with Amina, together begetting references ranging from the history of themonochrome to metaphorical notions of hair as a protective layer, symbol of knowledge, and means forcommunication and transport.

In the adjacent Hudson gallery, a ‘meadow’ of dried rice grass transforms the space into a landscape,referencing rice as a staple of the Afro-Caribbean diet. Viewed from above, the terrain is shaped in theform of the Ghanaian Adinkra symbol for Nsaa, which symbolizes quality and durability, andmetaphysically denotes excellence and authenticity. The dramatic foorscape fnds its focal point in JahRastafari (Stacked with Pineapple, Shield and Football), 2023, a multifaceted ceramic sculpture illustratinga bricolage of spiritual and cultural forms from disparate centuries.

The Main Gallery continues the dialogue of the interrelation of light and darkness opening with therelated words of Baldwin. Split in two, the divided spaces become each other’s complements. In thedarkness of one half, new Galaxy paintings, depicting distant constellations and galaxies as symbols ofthe invisible systems that structure our world, are placed in relation to three ceramic sculptures: InnerElder (Mary Seacole); Inner Elder (Biko as Septimius Severus); and Inner Elder (Nina Simone as Queen ofSheba), historical fgures who carry their own symbolic cosmology and are symbols of a lost language.These works explore the traditions of storytelling in West African and Afro-Caribbean cultures, servingthe dual purpose of vessels made of earth that host the daily materials of rice and water, and canvases todocument stories through symbols and patterns. The contrasting, light-flled gallery presents a whitepainting of hair, Mind Field No. 8, alongside three white marble sculptures, Makeda (A Map of the Crown),Moremi (A Map of the Crown), and Amanirenas (A Map of the Crown), collectively drawing questionsaround whiteness and related visual discourses of ancient sculpture.

Press release courtesy Marian Goodman Gallery