Blanton Exhibit Highlights Hidden Histories
The aroma of grass blades wafts through the gallery. Rice fronds blend light green with sun-soaked golden, meticulously arranged to create a field in the middle of a white-walled room. In the center, a sculpture towers over this horticultural tapestry. This installation is the centerpiece of the new exhibition at the Blanton Museum of Art, “Tavares Strachan: Between Me and You,” which opened to the public on Nov. 9, 2024, and will run through June 1, 2025.
The reeds arranged in the shape of the Mmere Dane (an Adinkran symbol that originated in the medieval African state of the Gyaman, in present-day Ghana and the Côte d’Ivoire) surround a layered sculpture. The structure consists of a pot base peppered with red and white constellations. Stacked atop the ceramic are a bust of Jamaican activist, Marcus Garvey; an NBA embossed basketball; and a 35mm camera like the one used by famed photographer Gordon Parks. These collected items form what artist Tavares Strachan calls “thought bubbles,” based on vignettes or symbols of importance from his life.
In this exhibition, rice grass, a major plantation crop, is used to reflect on the history of enslavement in the Americas. The pot connects to Strachan’s background in ceramics and alludes to the fact the creation of the ceramic pot revolutionized food culture. The distinctive fragrance of the rice that perfuses into the room “connects us with the evolution of humans,” Strachan says during an early private tour of the exhibition. With this piece, the artist seeks to “embed invisible stories into our collective memories.”
Strachan, who is based in both his hometown of Nassau, Bahamas, and New York City, melds interdisciplinary concepts into his work, which is underpinned by the aerospace research that he conducts at his company, Bahamas Aerospace and Sea Exploration Center (BASEC). His pieces have been featured in exhibitions in New York and London through the Marian Goodman Gallery, which has represented Strachan since 2020.
Hannah Klemm, the curator of modern and contemporary art at the Blanton, worked closely with Strachan on this exhibit. After seeing the gallery at the Blanton, Strachan began visualizing the project to play with the open space.
Despite the influences of his own local geography, Strachan’s art is global in its reach. Visitors from all of the world will recognize relevant themes of globalization, displacement, and community joy, which are foundational to his human-centered storytelling.
Alongside this installation, a miniature edition of Strachan’s “Encyclopedia of Invisibility” is displayed in a glass case. Cloaked in rich dark blue leather, the encyclopedia is a magnum opus of storytelling, containing histories that have been excluded from the canon, such as the story of Sara Josephine Baker, a queer physician at the turn of the 20th century who became the first woman to receive a doctorate of public health. Strachan’s artistic emphasis lies in bringing omitted narratives to light and investigating why some stories were retold countlessly through the ages, while others were ignored in the mainstream trajectory of history.
“That’s a major part of Strachan’s work,” Klemm says, “both articulating histories that are not always part of mainstream narratives, but also, through those articulations, he does a really beautiful job of showcasing what often is missing.”
Strachan’s love of creating was inspired by the matriarchal figures in his life: his grandmother and mother. On the tour, Strachan wears clothes he had made himself, attributing this creative penchant to his mother, who worked as a seamstress. Motherhood is a pivotal point of reflection in the artist’s work and permeates his portfolio, which is full of different artistic mediums.
A series of reimagined pietàs that touch on maternal love and grief are displayed throughout the museum’s European art gallery. In the three works, covered in gold, bronze, and silver foil respectively, Strachan reimagines Michelangelo’s pietàs, which traditionally depict the Virgin Mary and Jesus Christ, and instead focuses on three “Black men from history who were violently silenced.” Each of the men—martyred activists Malcom X and Stephen Biko, and Amadou Diallo, a victim of police brutality in New York City—are held in the arms of the mothers.
“Especially in America, we are still struggling with the language of belonging,” Strachan says in reference to the pietàs.
The sculptures include modern clothing and attire to denote the “breakage of time” and to blur the past and present. He focuses on reclamation, taking scenes of pain and great sorrow, and putting them through the lens of community gathering and beauty. Through this series, Strachan also seeks to prompt dialogue on the invisibility of mothers, especially those who have undergone and “reckoned with great loss [amid] histories of colonialism and the fight for civil rights.”
Strachan’s work considers power imbalances, religion, and human empathy using materials in innovative ways. His anthropological understanding is cross-cultural and can transcend time and borders to resonate with audiences, understanding both the influence of the past on the present and its implications for the future.
The Blanton Museum’s location on campus and accessibility—UT students get in free with their student ID—gives students exposure to compelling and innovative art. “The exhibition fits at The University of Texas, in Austin and Central Texas, which is a seat of government and has all of these voices and communities and histories,” Klemm says. “Strachan’s general outlook is one that is mirrored in a lot of what is present in Austin and through UT. It felt like a great opportunity to bring an artist in who could speak to that endeavor.”
CREDITS: Courtesy of the Blanton Museum of Art; Elon Schoenolz; courtesy of the Blanton Museum of Art
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