Tavares Strachan: There is Light Somewhere at Hayward Gallery

The Bahamian-born, New York-based artist Tavares Strachan seeks to reveal hidden histories, people and events overlooked and at times expunged by dominant white Western narratives. Now, the Hayward Gallery plays host to his compelling mid-career exhibition: There is Light Somewhere. Having presented at the 2019 Venice Biennale and received the MacArthur “Genius Grant”, Strachan has become highly respected internationally for his ambitious, interdisciplinary practice. Earlier this year, the artist’s sculptural reimagining of Leonardo’s Last Supper in the Royal Academy’s courtyard, featuring notable figures from Africa and its Diaspora, captured the attention of the public.

The current Hayward exhibition begins with a series of collages filled with colonial imagery and significant historical figures, particularly in the realm of Black History, interlaced with scientific diagrams. In one memorable work, Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie would appear to rise resplendently over the late Elizabeth II. Rumour would have it that upon meeting the African monarch, the former Queen of the United Kingdom bowed her head to acknowledge his superior rank. Later on the first floor here one finds a sculptural rendering of Selassie as a totem consisting of shields and footballs installed in a pungent field of rice plants set in the form of an African pictogram. 

Throughout the ground floor, one hears the voices of actors speaking the words of the writer and Civil Rights activist, James Baldwin. A neon text quoting the influential essayist in a darkened room turns out to provide the current show’s title. The notion that “one discovers…there is a light” can surely be seen as a metaphor for Tavares Strachan’s apparent constant quest for knowledge.

The Encyclopaedia of Invisibility, an ongoing project, is a characteristically ambitious work. An entire enclosed room filled with 17,000 entries features exceptional figures that have been forgotten by history due to prejudicial bias. Strachan’s huge leather-bound volume displayed in the centre questions why some stories are legitimised while others are obscured.  

The Bahamian has challenged cultural stereotypes in the field of exploration. Paying homage to the African-American pioneer Mathew Henson, Strachan went on his own expedition to the North Pole. Henson, who accompanied Robert Peary on the 1909 Polar expedition apparently reached the North Pole before his colleague only for Peary to take all the credit. Henson is depicted here in a 2012 work rendered in frosted acrylic, graphite and ink. The artist also draws on the tragic tale of the story of the first African American astronaut Robert Henry Lawrence Jr who died in a training exercise before ever undertaking a space mission in 1967. A rather eerie glowing neon map of the man’s nervous system at the Hayward captures the perils of space exploration.Strachan has launched the Bahamian Aerospace and Sea Exploration Center and sent a bronze of Robert Henry Lawrence Jr into low orbit with the small rocket on view here.

On the second floor of the Hayward, the visitor finds the artist’s latest work which sees him redrawing lost connections to African cultures. Portrait busts of Nina Simone and the Nobel Prize-winning Saint Lucien poet and playwright, Sir Derek Walcott, are located alongside the South African anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko and significant figures of more ancient times like Lucius Septimus Severus, the North African Roman emperor in an installation covered in deep red iron oxide; a mineral found in African mines.

An exciting new installation work, Intergalactic Palace contains the sound and light installation, Sonic Encyclopaedia within it. A thatched structure references Ugandan architecture, its interior becomes illuminated intermittently by celestial-like lights. A platform in the centre, surrounded by small portraits bust, features a sound system and DJ booth playing a soundtrack of notable voices such as Barack Obama and Gil Scott-Heron of “the Revolution will not be televised” fame. The floor here is covered in a layer of red iron oxide, alluding to East African mineral mining and resembling a Martian landscape.  

Arguably the most impressive work on show, though, awaits outside on the Hayward’s terrace overlooking the London skyline.  A huge boat floats in a rippling pool of water. It is the artist’s replica of the SS Yarmouth, the flagship of The Jamaican Pan-African Marcus Garvey’s Black Star Line shipping company. In the early 20^th century, Garvey was a proponent of the recolonising of Africa by black Americans and Jamaicans. 

Rich in insight, depth and ambition, this exhibition brings to light stories of erasure and remembrance. Tavares Strachan’s constantly inquiring mind and thirst for knowledge is to the fore as he engages in what he dubs his “infinite protest”. His practice calls for us to profoundly shift our view of world history. 

James White
Image: Mark Blower/Courtesy of the artist and the Hayward Gallery

Tavares Strachan: There is Light Somewhere is at Hayward Gallery from 18^th June until 1^st September 2024. For further information visit the exhibition’s website here.