Tavares Strachan: Ruin of a Giant (Marcus Garvey) 

Production | Exhibition Grant

Tavares Strachan’s Ruin of a Giant (Marcus Garvey) is a monumental bronze sculpture of the head of Black nationalist and Pan-Africanist thinker, Marcus Garvey. Strachan’s sculpture will stand seven feet tall, visually evoking the Olmec colossal heads from southeastern Mexico and the moai statues found throughout Polynesia. Strachan’s representation of Garvey’s head will include cracks and fissures into which the artist’s own haiku poetry will be inscribed. Ruin of a Giant (Marcus Garvey) is the first sculpture in Strachan’s new series, Giants Among Us, which extends the artist’s ongoing inquiry into questions of cultural visibility and social equity.

Ruin of a Giant (Marcus Garvey) will stand outside the entrance of London’s Hayward Gallery as the first public sculpture viewers will encounter upon visiting the Hayward’s major exhibition of Strachan’s art—the artist’s largest exhibition to date and first mid-career survey.