Tavares Strachan: Orthostatic Tolerance

The surf surrounding Tavares Strachan's (b. 1979, Nassau, Bahamas, lives New York) hometown of Nassau, is the site of an experimental rocket launch. Made of glass from island sand, and powered by sugarcane, the rockets mark a primary phase of the artist's Orthostatic Tolerance project (orthostatic means to stand upright, and tolerance refers to the ability to withstand pressure): to explore the heights of space and the depths of the ocean. Video, drawings, photography, and sculpture document the launch and allow a glimpse into the future. Through the rubric of scientific exploration, he engages both the resources and community of his home country, and investigates environmental, cultural, historical, and postcolonial issues.

The most recent stage of the Orthostatic Tolerance project—launching miniature rockets off the waters near Nassau, Bahamas—will be documented through an installation of drawings, photographs, video, and sculpture (including a compact equipment transport vehicle). Engaging both the resources and community of his home country, the artist investigates environmental, cultural, historical, and postcolonial issues through the rubric of scientific exploration.

Strachan holds a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design and an MFA from Yale University. His work explores physical displacement and the juxtaposition of natural extremes: past projects include The Distance Between What We Have and What We Want (2006) which involved extracting a 4.5 ton block of ice from an Alaskan river and shipping it to Nassau, where it was kept frozen by solar energy, and Glo-Our Rain Maker (2006), which periodically created a miniature, artificial cumulus cloud. Strachan has had solo exhibitions at Mattress Factory, Pittsburgh; The Luggage Store, San Francisco; Pierogi Gallery, Brooklyn; Ronald Feldman Gallery, New York; and Daniel Weinberg Gallery, Los Angeles.

This exhibition is organized by Whitney Lauder Curatorial Fellow Stamatina Gregory, and will be accompanied by a brochure publication.

ICA is grateful to the Iris and James Marden Exhibition Fund for sponsoring this Project Space exhibition. Additional funding has been provided by The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, The Dietrich Foundation, Inc., the Overseers Board for the Institute of Contemporary Art, friends and members of ICA, and the University of Pennsylvania.

Image, top of page: Tavares Strachan, from Orthostatic Tolerance project, 2009, photographs. Courtesy of the artist.