LONDON — At the center of Tavares Strachan’s mid-career survey at Hayward Gallery sits a 2,550-page leather-bound book. “The Encyclopedia of Invisibility” (2014–18) is a monumental research project compiling encyclopedic entries on people, objects, and phenomena that have been overlooked or neglected due to historical bias. The surrounding walls are papered with pages from the book, and many are overlaid with sketches, words, and collaged images, pointing to the incompleteness of any anthology of knowledge.
Throughout There Is Light Somewhere as a whole, the Bahamian artist is interested in telling the stories of unsung people of color who played key roles in crucial events of Euro-American culture, such as the Space Race or Polar exploration. For instance, “Henson” (2012) depicts Matthew Henson, a Black American explorer who may have been the first individual to reach the North Pole, though history credits White American expedition leader Robert Peary. Similarly, a pair of neon works reference Robert Henry Lawrence Jr., the first Black astronaut. Lawrence died after an ejector seat failed; in “Robert” (2018), a floating human form flickers disconcertingly, as if suspended in the infinitesimal moment between life and death.
These projects are both clever and easily graspable, a combination beloved by arts institutions hoping to use soundbites to engage visitors (in the style of Antony Gormley or Olafur Eliasson). But Strachan’s endeavors raise a subtler question that is not explicitly addressed in the exhibition: What does it mean for an artist of color to mirror or recreate the actions of so-called “pioneers”?
Recent thinking has sought to place Polar exploration in a colonial context, emphasizing the Imperial aims of the search for the Northwest Passage, the deliberate erasure of Indigenous peoples, and the hailing of the success of White explorers as a source of racist national pride. Similarly, both the Space Race of the mid-20th century and billionaires’ attempts to capitalize on space in our time can be seen as racialized, exploitative, and colonialist endeavors.
Strachan’s work is interesting because its relationship to these positional complexities remains obscure. Wall texts suggest that his work acts as an “infinite protest” against the status quo, while the press release describes him (apparently unironically) as having the “imaginative verve of a true pioneer.” He could alternatively be seen as copying or parodying the status quo, replicating or undermining it.
In 2008, Strachan founded the Bahamas Aerospace and Sea Exploration Center in an attempt to encourage more young Bahamians to choose careers in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math. One of its first projects was a rocket launch; an example of a rocket and photographs taken during liftoff are on display. Yet the rocket exhaust clouds are comically phallic, perhaps suggesting that Strachan’s infiltration of a domain typically dominated by wealthy White males is a bit tongue-in-cheek. Strachan refuses to shy away from such contradictions, resulting in a complex and subversive body of work.
Tavares Strachan: There Is Light Somewhere continues at Hayward Gallery (Southbank Centre, Belvedere Road, London) through September 1. The exhibition was organized by Ralph Rugoff with Thomas Sutton and Hannah Martin.
