Where We Are Is Always Miles Away, Tavares Strachan November 17, 2006

For Immediate Release
Contact Laurie Lazer 415 255 5971
Email: luggagestore@sbcglobal.net
300 dpi jpegs available upon request

Exhibition
Tavares Strachan
Where We Are Is Always Miles Away
curated by Laurie Lazer/Darryl Smith

Dates: November 17, 2006 - January 6, 2007

Opening: Friday, November 17, 6-8pm

Venue:
The luggage store
1007 Market Street
San Francisco, CA 94103 USA
Tel. 415. 255 5971
Website:
www.luggagestoregallery.org

Gallery Hours:
Wednesday-Saturday 12-5 and by appointment
closed 11/23 and 11/24

(San Francisco, CA) October 12, 2006:) the luggage
store is proud to present Tavares Strachan's
commissioned installation, Where We Are Is Always
Miles Away co-curated by Darryl Smith and Laurie
Lazer. This is Strachan's debut exhibition on the
West Coast.

Strachan directed the excavation of a 3000 lb.
portion, 56" x 56" of Crown Street in New Haven,
Connecticut-- including cement, earth, a parking
meter, a street sign and accompanying air. The
excavated materials will be transported to San
Francisco, California via truck and then craned into
the 2nd floor space of the luggage store gallery where
the "materials" will be exhibited in a hermetically
sealed container that is being made to recreate the
atmospheric and temperature conditions at the time of
Strachan’s excavation.

The light of New Haven, Connecticut, emanating from
"Where We Are Is Always Miles Away" will be the sole
source of light in the gallery.

In the winter of 2006, the City of New Haven's
Department of Cultural Affairs, the Office of
Economic Development and Engineering Departments
agreed to provide pro bono services for Strachan's
project. This included a crew to excavate the
sidewalk under Strachan's direction, a donation of the
City's real estate and accompanying “air” to the
artist's project, and a crew to repair, recreate and
replace the materials that were taken from the City
street. The crew ultimately left no trace or evidence
that anything out of the ordinary had occurred.

Where We Are Is Always Miles Away references the
contributions of art historical figures like Robert
Smithson and Gordon Matta-Clark, but goes beyond
issues of forcible displacement. Where We Are…
engages current scientific technologies to explore
multiple layers of removal, replacement, repositioning
and re-creation while evoking both absence and
presence (or non-presence).

Strachan says: "As an artist, I have been
attracted to how physical space displacement
completely changes our reality. I am concerned with a
microcosmic approach to art making, an approach that
forces us to re-examine our experiences, interactions
and involvements with all we have around us. From
sculpting an invisible cube of heat, or listening to
the sound of an ant walking, to sending light
particles from one part of the world to another, these
prepositions are engrossed with the presence of things
physically missing or immediately distant. These
apparently geological adjustments allude to a kind of
poetry that is inherent in all spaces. What is
physically present becomes dematerialized and my
process reappears as a collision between technology
and nature."

Where We Are Is Always Miles Away can be viewed
literally as a physical reality moving to a different
space and time. On a poetic level, it suggests the
notion of dual and shared experiences, bringing light
from one place to another, as well as the play of
virtual reality, myth- making and oral tradition. Yet
the work also has an implicit association with
violence-- a violation of a specific space and
time--with intent to extract, disrupt, and displace,
ultimately leading to a state of imbalance. In this
way, Strachan's work deftly addresses and reflects on
a myriad of cultural shifts and socio-political
conditions of the present day.

Strachan is from Nassau, Bahamas, and holds an MFA
from Yale University and a BFA from the Rhode Island
School of Design. His work has been exhibited at the
CAC in Cincinnati, SAFN Museum in Reykjavik, Iceland,
and in the Bahamas. His Artic Ice Project -- The
Distance Between What We Have and What We Want,
involved extracting a 4000 pound piece of ice from an
Alaskan River and shipping it in a refrigerated
container to Nassau where it was kept frozen by solar
energy. The Arctic Ice Project was on view during
July and August 2006 in Nassau, Bahamas. It will be
exhibited in the Wynwood section of Miami, Florida
during Miami Basel Art Fair in December 2006.
Concurrent with his show at the luggage store,
Strachan also is being featured in solo exhibitions at
Pierogi Gallery in Brooklyn, New York and the Ronald
Feldman Gallery in New York City.

The Luggage Store Gallery is San Francisco’s premiere
non-profit arts organization. Its visual and performing arts programs are dedicated to broadening social and aesthetic networks, encouraging the flow of

images and ideas between different cultural and economic communities.

Where We Are Is Always Miles Away is funded in part by
The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, The
National Endowment for the Arts, Grants for the Arts
of the Hotel Tax Fund, The San Francisco Foundation
and The San Francisco Art Commission/cultural Equity
Fund.

300 dpi jpegs available upon request - all in process
images as the work is not complete..
please refer to the website:

www.luggagestoregallery.org / left side click Image
Gallery

Official Website: http://www.luggagestoregallery.org