Tavares STRACHAN

Perrotin is delighted to join the inaugural Frieze Seoul with a solo presentation by Tavares Strachan, marking the acclaimed New York-based artist’s highly anticipated premiere in Asia, and the debut of a new series of tondo works titled Galaxy Mandala.

Growing up in The Bahamas, Strachan spent his youth looking into the night sky, which sparked his propensity for exploration. He has embarked on expeditions to the Arctic, harvested a 4.5-ton block of ice and shipped it to his elementary school for exhibition, trained as a cosmonaut, established the Bahamas Aerospace and Sea Exploration Center (B.A.S.E.C.) — an art studio and a laboratory for scientific research — and launched an artwork into space in tribute to one of his personal heroes, Robert Henry Lawrence, Jr., the first African American astronaut selected for any national space program.

Over the past decade, Strachan has been building Encyclopedia of Invisibility, an A-to-Z compendium of some 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 Encyclopaedia Britannica, traditionally regarded as a primary source of world literacy in the pre-Internet age. This ongoing project is a wellspring of stories overshadowed through history which Strachan brings to the fore through various bodies of mixed media work.

Strachan's presentation at Frieze Seoul highlights work from three principal series, and a rare edition of Encyclopedia of Invisibility.

Invisibles, referring to subjects drawn from Encyclopedia of Invisibility. Works in this series are in dialogue with the history of picture making and storytelling, shining light on the subjects’ hidden historical stories.

Galaxy, Strachan’s recent series based on the notion of stargazing, re-imagines the experience of looking into the stars and becoming the author of what is there through the act of viewing.

Galaxy Mandala, a new body of circular works drawing on symbolic elements of the mandala as a representation of the universe and reflections on life and existence.