Born in 1979 in Nassau, Bahamas
Lives and works between New York, USA and Nassau, Bahamas

塔瓦雷斯·斯特羅恩

Tavares Strachan’s conceptual, interdisciplinary practice activates connections between art, history, science, and cultural critique to mobilize our senses, intellect and curiosity, asking us to reconsider our received knowledge of the world.

Growing up in the Bahamas, Strachan spent his youth looking into the night sky, which would fuel his obsession with space and exploration. Themes of invisibility, displacement, and loss are central to his work, which questions historically canonized narratives that marginalize or obscure others. He uses the rubric of received knowledge to make networks and structures of power more visible, and to bring to light forgotten or little-known historical epics and human achievements. Aeronautical exploration, expeditions to desolate locations and extreme environments, and allegories of the human aspiration to surmount mortal limitations and adverse circumstances, are some of his settings for telling lost stories and stories of the invisible.

In the early 2010s he began the Encyclopedia of Invisibility, an A-to-Z compendium of now 17,000 entries describing legacies of the under-recognized and unfamiliar—people, places, events, objects, concepts, and phenomena—based on the layout and logic of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Tracing the story of polar explorer Matthew Henson, thought to be the first person to reach the North Pole, Strachan undertook expeditions to the Arctic and excavated a 4.5-ton block of ice that he then shipped by Federal Express to his elementary school in Nassau where it was exhibited in a specially designed solar-powered freezer chamber. He has collaborated with Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) scientists, trained as a cosmonaut, and launched an artwork into space in collaboration with SpaceX in tribute to Robert Henry Lawrence, Jr., the first African American astronaut selected for any United States national space program.
 
Extensively researched, his projects are, oftentimes, monumental in scale and scope, and realized in collaboration with specialists and organizations across a wide spectrum of fields. He draws on both the resources and community of his birthplace, dividing his time between his studio in New York and Nassau in the Bahamas, where he has established art studio and scientific research platform B.A.S.E.C. (Bahamas Aerospace and Sea Exploration Center) and OKU, a not-for-profit community project encompassing an artist residency and exhibition spaces, a scholarship scheme, and after-school creative programs.
 

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education

2006
-  MFA in Sculpture, Yale School of Art, Yale University

2003
-  BFA in Glass, Rhode Island School of Design

solo shows

2024
Tavares Strachan: There Is Light Somewhere, Hayward Gallery, London, UK  [forthcoming]
Magnificent Darkness, Marian Goodman Gallery, Los Angeles, California, USA  [forthcoming]

2023
Do And Be, Perrotin, Seoul, South Korea
The Return, Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa

2022
In Broad Daylight, Perrotin, Paris, France
In Total Darkness, Galerie Marian Goodman, Paris, France
-  The Awakening, Marian Goodman Gallery, New York City, USA

2021
Belong / Brooklyn (commissioned outdoor installation) | Barclays Center, New York City, USA

2020
In Plain Sight, Marian Goodman Gallery, London, UK

2018
Invisibles, Regen Projects, Los Angeles, USA
In Broad Daylight (commissioned outdoor installation) | Baltimore Museum of Art, Maryland, USA
The Other Side Of The Sun, Mestre Projects, Nassau, The Bahamas
Always, Sometimes, Never, Frye Art Museum, Seattle, USA

2017
I Am (commissioned outdoor installation) | The 1st Desert X, Coachella Valley, California, USA

2015
-  How To Make Someone Invisible, Fergus McCaffrey, St. Barthélemy
Seeing Is Forgetting The Thing That You Saw, Anthony Meier Fine Arts, San Francisco, USA

2014
You Belong Here (commissioned outdoor installation) | Prospect.3 Triennial: Notes For Now, New Orleans, USA

2013
The Immeasurable Daydream | The 12th Biennale de Lyon: Meanwhile… Suddenly, And Then, Museum of Contemporary Art, Lyon, France
-  The 1st Bahamas Pavilion: Polar Eclipse | The 55th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia: Il Palazzo Enciclopedico / The Encyclopedic Palace, Venice, Italy

2012
I Belong Here (presented by Anthony Meier Fine Arts), Art Basel Miami Beach, USA
Here And Now, Dvir Gallery, Tel Aviv, Israel

2011
Seen/Unseen, undisclosed location, New York City, USA
Sometimes Lies Are Prettier, Rossi & Rossi, London, UK

2010
Orthostatic Tolerance: It Might Not Be Such A Bad Idea If I Never Went Home, MIT List Visual Arts Center | Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, USA
Orthostatic Tolerance: Launching Into An Infinite Distance, Grand Arts, Kansas City, Missouri, USA

2009
The Distance Between What We Have and What We Want (Arctic Art Project), Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York City, USA
You Can Do Whatever You Like (The Orthostatic Tolerance Project), Institute of Contemporary Art | University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA

2008
Tavares Strachan, Pierogi 2000, Leipzig, Germany
A Hundred Years, Daniel Weinberg Gallery, Los Angeles, USA

2006
The Distance Between What We Have and What We Want (presented by Ronald Feldman Fine Arts and Pierogi 2000), Miami, USA
Where We Are Is Always Miles Away, The Luggage Store, San Francisco, USA
Tavares Strachan, Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, New York City, USA
Tavares Strachan, Pierogi 2000, New York City, USA
The Distance Between What We Have and What We Want, Albury Sayle Primary School, Nassau, The Bahamas

group shows

2024
Invisibility: Powers and Perils | PST ART: Art & Science Collide, Oxy Arts, Los Angeles, California, USA  [forthcoming]
Entangled Pasts, 1768–now: Art, Colonialism and Change, Royal Academy of Arts, London, UK

2023
The Irreplaceable Human – Conditions of Creativity in the Age of AI, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk, Denmark
-  The 14th Shanghai Biennale: Cosmos Cinema, Power Station of Art, Shanghai, PRC
Incarnations: Le corps dans la collection du macLYON – Acte 2, Museum of Contemporary Art, Lyon, France
One Hundred More Fires | Social Forms: Art as Global Citizenship (curated by Christian Viveros-Fauné), Oregon Contemporary (in partnership with Converge 45), Portland, Oregon, USA

2022
-  Forecast Form: Art in the Carribean Diaspora, 1990s – Today, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Chicago, USA
A Gateway to Possible Worlds: Art and Science Fiction, Centre Pompidou-Metz, Metz, France
Citing Black Geographies, GRAY, Chicago and New York City, USA
Flesh And Bones: The Art Of Anatomy, Getty Center, Los Angeles, USA 
Substance – SUBSTANCES (presented by Collegium), Church of San Martín, Arévalo, Ávila, Spain
The Impermanent Display II, Maja Hoffmann / LUMA Foundation Collection, LUMA, Arles, France

2021
-  The 1st Diriyah Contemporary Art Biennale: Feeling the Stones, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

2020
Unmastered, Mestre Projects, Nassau, Bahamas
We Belong Here (in conjunction with The NV STEAM Conference), Nevada Museum of Art, Reno, USA
Winter Light, Hayward Gallery | Southbank Centre, London, UK
The Willfulness of Objects, The Bass, Miami Beach, USA
Bright Golden Haze, Oklahoma Contemporary, Oklahoma City, USA
Life During Wartime: Art in the Age of Coronavirus, USF Contemporary Art Museum | University of South Florida, Tampa, Florida, USA
INVISIBLE, Science Gallery, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland
Countermythologies, NXTHVN, New Haven, Connecticut, USA
You Belong Here (permanent outdoor installation) | The Momentary | Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas, USA
Sometimes Lies Are Prettier (outdoor installation with AF Projects) | Frieze Los Angeles Projects, Los Angeles, USA

2019
Smoke & Mirrors, AF Projects, Los Angeles, USA
Soft Power: A Conversation For The Future, SFMOMA | San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, USA
How The Light Gets In, Johnson Museum of Art | Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA
Far Out: Suits, Habs, And Labs for Outer Space, SFMOMA | San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, USA
-  The 58th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia: May You Live In Interesting Times, Venice, Italy
The Visible Turn: Contemporary Artists Confront Political Invisibility, USF Contemporary Art Museum | University of South Florida, Tampa, Florida, USA

2018
We Belong Here (commissioned outdoor installation) | The 1st Faena Festival: This Is Not America, Miami Beach, USA
The Encyclopedia of Invisibility (commissioned outdoor installation) | The 57th Carnegie International, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA
Indicators: Artists on Climate Change, Storm King Art Center, New Windsor, New York, USA
Declaration, Institute for Contemporary Art | Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia, USA

2017
Solidary & Solitary: The Joyner/ Giuffrida Collection (in collaboration with Baltimore Museum of Art), Ogden Museum of Southern Art, New Orleans, USA

2016
False Narratives, Pierogi 2000, New York City, USA
Winter 2015: Collected Works, Rennie Collection, Vancouver, Canada

2015
The Transformation Business, Jane Lombard Gallery, New York City, USA

2014
On The Blue Shore Of Silence, Tracy Williams Gallery, New York City, USA
Bringing The World Into The World, Queens Museum, New York City, USA

2013
Life: On the Moon, Various Small Fires, Los Angeles, USA
Arctic, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk, Denmark
-  The 5th Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art: More Light, Moscow, Russia
Pataphysics: A Theoretical Exhibition, Sean Kelly Gallery, New York City, USA

2011
Roundabout, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Tel Aviv, Israel

2010
Roundabout°, City Gallery Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand
-  The 3rd Fokus Łódź Biennale: From The Liberty Square To Independence Square, Łódź, Poland

2009
Black & White Works, Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, New York City, USA

2008
Drawing Review: 37 Years Of Works On Paper, Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, New York City, USA
Pierogi Et Al, Daniel Weinberg Gallery, Los Angeles, USA
InnerOuterSpace, Mattress Factory, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA

2007
New York States Of Mind, Queens Museum of Art, New York City, USA
20th Anniversary: In The Fullness Of Time, The Luggage Store, San Francisco, USA
New York States Of Mind, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, Germany
Block Party II: An Exhibition of Drawings, Daniel Weinberg Gallery, Los Angeles, USA
(Un)Natural Selection, Pierogi 2000, New York City, USA
Connecticut Contemporary, Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, Connecticut, USA
From The Fat Of The Land: Alchemies, Ecologies, Attractions, Grand Arts, Kanas City, Missouri, USA

2006
Surveillances And Observations: Subjecting To The Objective, Pierogi 2000, Leipzig, Germany
Factitious, Pierogi 2000, New York City, USA
School Days, Jack Tilton Gallery, New York City, USA

2005
-  Untitled, Safn, Reykjavík, Iceland

2004
Nothing Compared To This: Ambient, Incidental And New Minimal Tendencies In Current Art, Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati, Ohio, USA

2003
One-On-One, Pierogi 2000, New York City, USA

2002
Mine, Lombard-Freid Fine Arts, New York City, USA

public collections

-  The Bass, Miami, Florida, USA
-  Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA
-  LACMA | Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, USA
-  The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, USA
-  The Momentary | Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas, USA
-  MAC de Lyon | Musée d’art contemporain, Lyon, France
-  QAGOMA | The Queensland Art Gallery & Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane, Australia
-  RISD Museum | Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, Rhode Island, USA

awards

2022
-  MacArthur Fellows Program, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation

20192020
-  Artist-in-Residence Scholar, Getty Research Institute

2018
-  Frontier Art Prize
-  Inaugural Artist-in-Residence, Allen Institute

2014
-  LACMA Art + Technology Lab Grant, Los Angeles County Museum of Art

2009–2010
-  MIT Artist-in-Residence, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

2008
-  Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Grant

2007
-  Fellowship, Grand Arts Residency

2006
-  Alice B. Kimball Fellowship, Yale School of Art, Yale University

TALKS

2023
-  Talk  | The Encyclopedia of Invisibility — A Home for Lost Stories | TED2023: Possibility, Vancouver, Canada
-  Panel discussion | Collaborating: Public Art and Social Impact (in conversation with Clara Wu Tsai, Kymberly Pinder, and Tamar Gendler), Yale School of Art, New Haven, Connecticut, USA

2022
-  Panel discussion | Models Of Our Time: The Caribbean | Talking Galleries, The Morgan Library & Museum, New York City, USA
-  Artist talk | Full Circle: Tavares Strachan, Felix Meritis, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

2021
-  Artist talk | Tavares Strachan (in conversation with Alysia Nicole Harris), Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas, USA
Belong / Brooklyn: A Conversation Between Tavares Strachan And Clara Wu Tsai, Barclays Center, New York City, USA

2020
-  Artist talk | Tavares Strachan In Conversation With Ekow Eshun | Frieze London Talks, online
-  Panel discussion | Shifting Art & Design Practices During Times Of Crisis | Design Talks for Design Pavilion (presented by Rhode Island School of Design), online

2019
-  Artist talk | Invisibility, Identity: Tavares Strachan – The Berlin Wall Hoodie | The 3rd World Frontiers Forum: Human · Digital · Identity · Future, Factory Berlin, site of the Berlin Wall, Germany
-  Astronaut Dr. Yvonne Cagle And Artist Tavares Strachan In Conversation | SFMOMA | San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, USA
-  Artist talk | Tavares Strachan | The 57th Carnegie International lecture series (co-presented with Caregie Mellon University's School of Art) | Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA
-  Panel discussion | Artists, Activism, Agency: A Conversation With Artists Shepard Fairey, Catherine Opie, Tavares Strachan, And Nadya Tolokonnikova (co-presented by Sotheby's Institute of Art), The Broad Stage, Los Angeles, USA

2018
-  Keynote | Tavares Strachan: Art And Existence | The 2nd Frontier Art Prize Winner Talk, Harvard Business School | Harvard University, Boston, USA

2017
-  Panel discussion | Does Technology Need The Arts To Build A Better Future? (presented by Future Tense – a partnership between Slate, New America, and Arizona State University), New America, Washington DC, USA

2014
-  Artist Talk | In Conversation: (Im)possible Matters (moderated by Franklin Sirmans), EXPO Chicago, Navy Pier, Chicago, USA

2010
-  Panel discussion | Tavares Strachan: Orthostatic Tolerance (It Might Not Be Such a Bad Idea if I Never Went Home), MIT List Visual Arts Center | Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA

 

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    Artreview — 9 PAGES

Tavares Strachan on his ceramic works

Tavares Strachan on his ceramic works

Tavares STRACHAN

"IN BROAD DAYLIGHT" — AT PERROTIN PARIS

"IN BROAD DAYLIGHT" — AT PERROTIN PARIS

Tavares STRACHAN

PERROTIN

Closed for installation

Perrotin Los Angeles is closed for installation through Friday, April 5.

We look forward to welcoming you at our next exhibition, Art 2 by MSCHF. Join us at the opening on Saturday, April 6, 2024 between 3pm to 8pm! The exhibition will continue through June 1.
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