{"id":3696,"date":"2025-04-12T12:38:02","date_gmt":"2025-04-12T12:38:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/2025\/04\/12\/observer-arts-interviews-artist-tavares-strachan\/"},"modified":"2025-04-12T12:38:08","modified_gmt":"2025-04-12T12:38:08","slug":"observer-arts-interviews-artist-tavares-strachan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/2025\/04\/12\/observer-arts-interviews-artist-tavares-strachan\/","title":{"rendered":"Observer Arts Interviews: Artist Tavares Strachan"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Tavares Strachan, The Birth of Exuma (Eagle Talon)<\/em>, 2024; Ceramic, rice field installation. Courtesy of the artist and Marian Goodman Gallery \/ Photo: Tom Powel Imaging<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A piano without a player in a dimly lit room plays dramatic tunes. What you see next as you enter a larger space is an open field of turf, with a totemic statue standing in the middle as a syncretic idol, combining aspects and aesthetics from different cultures and religions. Over this highly symbolic scenery, neon runs along the wall, intermittently illuminating words, fragments of sense or a poem interrupted or perhaps merely evoked. For \u201cStarless Midnight,\u201d Tavares Strachan<\/a>\u2019s latest show at Marian Goodman Gallery, the Bahamian conceptual artist has choreographed a complex sensorial and symbolic storytelling that unfolds throughout the gallery\u2019s new Tribeca space, morphing and transforming it into a theatrical setting of disconnected narrations. Although deeply symbolic and evocative, the storytelling that Strachan stages throughout the space is intentionally fragmentary and suspended.<\/p>\n

\n<\/section>\n

\u201cThe work is always about navigation\u2014how we move through space, time and the stories that shape our existence,\u201d the artist told Observer when we spoke after the opening. \u201cThere\u2019s no single narrative, but rather an unfolding of connections, ruptures and reimaginings.\u201d Strachan, in his practice, has long been interested in how stories are told, staged and manipulated to shape history. As the artist explains, he wanted visitors to experience and surrender to this fragmentation because history itself is fragmented\u2014what we know is often dictated by what has been preserved or erased. \u201cThe goal is to create a sense of dislocation, where visitors feel the weight of forgotten or hidden histories while also being encouraged to map their own pathways through the work.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

SEE ALSO: In L.A., Emilia Yin Is Prioritizing Artist Evolution Over Market Moments <\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The sculptures Strachan has staged in the different galleries appear as symbolic relics suspended between an ancestral past and an approaching cosmic future. Deliberately drawing from ancient traditions and spirituality, they seem able to establish a more spontaneous and natural relationship with that symbolic world: a level of reality that speaks through universal symbols and archetypes, directly linked to the mystery and miracle of nature\u2014but which modern man has lost, as Carl Jung argued.<\/p>\n

Standing on an open field of rice grass is a near-life-size ceramic of the musician and artist Exuma. Although clearly contemporary in its crafting and aesthetic, it holds a totemic and numinous presence. Running along the top of the wall is a colorful neon, which intermittently illuminates with a dim light a quote by James Baldwin that begins, \u2018You could be that person\u2026\u2019<\/p>\n

\"In\"In
Marian Goodman Gallery showcases Strachan\u2019s multifaceted artistic practice, which is structured by a visual language of storytelling. Courtesy of the artist and Marian Goodman Gallery \/ Photo: Tom Powel Imaging<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cThese sculptures exist in an in-between space\u2014between past and future, the earthly and the cosmic, the known and the unknown,\u201d Strachan said. \u201cThey function as both artifacts and possibilities, simultaneously grounding us in ancestral knowledge and propelling us toward speculative futures.\u201d Here, the artist is acting as a contemporary archeologist, with works that pursue a return to the ritualistic and spiritual function that artifacts once had\u2014created when humans felt the need to make something symbolic, not directly related to survival but belonging to the realm of imagination, a tool to try to address some of the biggest mysteries of the universe and our existence within. \u201cThey draw from spiritual traditions because those traditions are technologies of understanding\u2014ways in which cultures have attempted to decode the universe,\u201d he continued, making clear how his approach to artistic practice and creation links and resonates with the ancient Greek techn\u00e9<\/i>\u2014a term that could be simultaneously translated as craft, art or skill, though its meaning is much broader: it encompasses both practical and intellectual activities that involve making or creating something according to a certain set of rules or knowledge.<\/p>\n

The Greek term techne<\/i> is, in fact, intrinsically connected to the human ability to shape the world and understand the natural and social orders through active participation and creation. It is a form of practical knowledge, opposed to the more philosophical and theoretical episteme<\/i>, which learns by exploring and investigating the world in close connection with its physical nature to reach and capture its deepest energetic and spiritual essence. \u201cIn this sense, the sculptures are both characters and vessels\u2014narrative carriers that hold the weight of time and speculation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Across cultures, since the early stages of civilization, craftsmanship\u2014whether in pottery, sculpture or architecture\u2014allowed humans to express their culture, beliefs and values through material creations. Through techn\u00e9<\/i>, human beings could articulate their vision of the world, whether through functional objects that served practical needs or symbolic works that conveyed deeper meanings or narratives that relied on beauty to contrast the inherent chaos of the universe.<\/p>\n

Among those technologies, instruments are the only ones that can also be tools of expression, using sound as a human would. While melodies can convey emotions, stories and cultural values that transcend words, instruments were originally used to replicate natural processes or enhance human interaction with nature. In shamanistic rituals across cultures and latitudes, rhythms and sounds helped to induce altered states of consciousness, allowing communication with the spirits of nature and reconnection with the earth, animals and natural forces.<\/p>\n

\"A\"A
Tavares Strachan, Daughter of Ra (Mary Jackson)<\/em>, 2025. Courtesy of the artist and Marian Goodman Gallery \/ Photo: Tom Powel Imaging<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In Strachan\u2019s orchestration, musical instruments, devoid of human players, are animated by spirits that reclaim their original spiritual significance\u2014long suppressed by ethnographic museum practices and the Western-centric approach that erased both the instruments\u2019 creators and their purpose. Through this reappropriation, the spirits restore the instruments\u2019 neglected cultural and spiritual value, challenging the erasure and distortion imposed by colonial frameworks. \u201cSound is an invisible force, a vibration that exists between presence and absence,\u201d reflected Strachan. \u201cThe ghostly nature of the instruments reflects this\u2014it\u2019s about resonance, about what lingers even after the physical body is no longer there.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the show, they function as both artifacts and activators, making the unseen audible. \u201cSound, like history, carries echoes of the past into the future,\u201d he said. \u201cThe instruments exist as bridges between ancient storytelling traditions and modern technological innovations, where oral history and data-driven narratives merge.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another recurring theme in the exhibition is how our reliance on those data-driven constructions of reality are shaping our entire understanding of history from the past to the future. With a focus on revealing the threats of manipulation and erasure that come with this, the works upstairs reflect Strachan\u2019s project, \u201cThe Encyclopedia of Invisibility.\u201d Driven by a fascination with archives and conceived as a recollection of forgotten and invisible stories, the project questions the fragility of both historical and contemporary narratives, straddling the divide between written traditions and data-driven interpretations, transformation and erasure.<\/p>\n

\"A\"A
Tavares Strachan, \u2028Son of Andromeda (Malcolm X)<\/em>, 2025. Courtesy of the artist and Marian Goodman Gallery \/ Photo: Tom Powel Imaging<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201c\u2018The Encyclopedia of Invisibility\u2019 is an ongoing project\u2014an attempt to catalog what has been left out,\u201d Strachan said. \u201cIt challenges the authority of historical narratives by asking: Who decides what is remembered? What happens to those who remain unseen?\u201d In this context, existing at the intersection of text, image and mythology\u2014and drawing from everything from scientific discovery to folklore\u2014the works in the exhibition act as a visual archive, illuminating what has been omitted, whether through systemic erasure or intentional forgetting. \u201cIt\u2019s about constructing a new kind of history\u2014one that acknowledges the gaps and gives space to what was never written down.\u201d<\/p>\n

As one traverses the galleries, the work on view appears to be animated by a similar encyclopedic intent, with a compendium of diverse fragments and clues to a lost civilization. The neon is a poetic recollection of these moments and an invitation to question our sense of being in relation to the world\u2014contemplating and embracing its inherent but fascinating complexity. \u201cThe neon pieces act as both markers and disruptions\u2014illuminations that guide and provoke,\u201d Strachan said. \u201cThey serve as clues, asking the viewer to engage with meaning as something fluid and constructed rather than fixed.\u201d<\/p>\n

The entirety of the show is, in some ways, like an encyclopedia\u2014not one that is linear or exhaustive but one that embraces the poetic nature of history as a collection of fragmented, intersecting truths. A \u201cStarless Midnight,\u201d where, having lost their once-illusory stable points of reference, humans are forced to question the structure of reality and their place in the inherent chaos of existence. \u201cAt its core, the work is about questioning how we locate ourselves in time, in history and in the cosmos,\u201d the artist concluded. \u201cIt\u2019s an invitation to reimagine our own place within these larger systems of knowledge and forgetting.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"A\"A
Each work features references to years of research from Strachan\u2019s ongoing project, \u201cThe Encyclopedia of Invisibility\u201d\u2014an encyclopedia of his own construction to house lost stories. Courtesy of the artist and Marian Goodman Gallery \/ Photo: Tom Powel Imaging<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Tavares\u00a0Strachan\u2019s \u201cStarless Midnight<\/a>\u201d is on view at Marian Goodman Gallery in New York<\/span> through April 19, 2025.<\/h4>\n

\t\t\t\t\"At<\/p><\/div>\n