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The Arts Intel Report

A Stranger's Soul is a Deep Well

Jan 20 – Feb 20, 2021
169 Bowery, New York, NY 10002

“If you put yourself into the work completely, it gives back to you,” the Native American artist Athena LaTocha told American Indian magazine in 2016. Using organic materials such as salt, soil, and ash, as well as the elements, LaTocha makes landscapes that envision nature as a space to move within, upending the Western tradition of looking down over a valley or up at a mountain range. Her style attempts to free itself from the judgements of others and the sweep of trends, to be wholly reliant on her inner life and it’s relationship with the earth. This exhibition takes interiority, and the inherent unknowability of the Other, as its theme. Named for a proverb by Dostoevsky, it draws together nine contemporary artists, including LaTocha, whose works attempt to capture a purity of perspective, one unmediated by commercialism or current cultural politics. —C.J.F.

Courtesy of the artist and Fridman Gallery, NY.