Tavares Strachan | Encyclopedia of Invisibility (Pocket Guide)

Tavares Strachan

Encyclopedia of Invisibility (Pocket Guide)

New York City, USA: Marian Goodman Gallery, 2024

[unpaginated], 23.5 x 30.8 x 25.4 cm., hardcover

Edition of 250 signed and numbered copies

The Encyclopedia of Invisibility [below] is a 2018 bookwork by Tavares Strachan that features thousands of entries focused on historically marginalized individuals, places, and events. The Encyclopedia is a 2400 page compendium of research into subject matter and topics of overlooked and hidden histories. It is described by the artist as "a written and illustrated inverse of the Encyclopedia Britannica, functioning as Literature but also taking on the role of Sculpture.”

The Pocket Guide version is a slightly more accessible version. Produced in an edition of 250, it is bound in leather, with gilded pages made of archival paper, and housed on a lucite box and stand. It has a price tag of four grand, and a three month waiting period, as the works are made to order. 

For more information, visit the publisher’s site, here. 

Tavares Strachan | Seen/Unseen Multiple Edition

Tavares Strachan

Seen/Unseen Multiple Edition

Hong Kong, China: ArtAsiaPacific, 2014

Dimensions of crate: 22” x 19” x 9 1/2”

Frosted Acrylic: 13 1/2 x 13 x 4 1/2”

Edition of 40 signed copies. 

The deluxe "multiple" edition of Strachan's Seen/Unseen (see previous post) is encased in frosted acrylic and housed in a wooden crate, with white gloves. 

Tavares Strachan | Seen/Unseen

Tavares Strachan

Seen/Unseen

Hong Kong, China: ArtAsiaPacific, 2014

182 pp., 21.5 × 29.5 cm., hardcover

Edition size unknown

An artist book/exhibition catalogue hybrid that documents Strachan’s 2011 secret survey exhibition of the same name. Installed in an undisclosed location in New York City, and deliberately made inaccessible to the public, the exhibition explored "the polarizing dichotomies of presence and absence, visibility and invisibility, and man and nature".

Edited by Hanae Ko and Elaine W. Ng and designed by Sagmeister&Walsh Seen/Unseen features new texts by Gregory Volk and Robert Hobbs and interviews between the artist and Franklin Sirmans and schoolchildren of the Cary Academy.  

Yesterday it was announced Strachan was a recipient of the MacArthur fellowship - receiving an $800,000 stipend, with no strings attached.

"In late 2009, I started thinking about the idea of an "invisible" show. Almost two years later, Seen/Unseen, a 20,000-square-foot exhibition of my work from the preceding six years, opened in an undisclosed industrial space in New York City. Despite the fact that Seen/Unseen was closed to the public, a press release was issued via e-flux, a full-page ad was placed in Artforum and announcements about the show were mailed. The exhibition closed on October 28, 2011, four-and-a-half weeks after it opened. This book documents and presents insight into Seen/Unseen."

- Tavares Strachan