Traveling Exhibition Available
Athena LaTocha (Standing Rock Lakota/ Keweenaw Bay Ojibwe) created the works in her Mesabi series on-site at iron deposits in the Mesabi Mountain Range of northern Minnesota, which is known to the local Ojibwe as Misaabe-wajiw, “Giant Mountain” or “Sleeping Giant.” The range is the site of the Hull-Rust-Mahoning iron ore mine, the world’s largest open-pit iron ore mine. LaTocha cast iron reliefs during a month-long residency, coordinated by the MacRostie Art Center in Grand Rapids and supported by the Minnesota Museum of Mining in Chisholm, MN. The works were cast by pouring molten iron freestyle into a bed of sand. The process is an extension of LaTocha’s gestural painting practice, where she pours and throws ink, earth, and other materials onto monumental sheets of paper. During the pour, while the iron is still liquid, LaTocha manipulates the molten metal with various tools much the same way she uses found objects to manipulate pools of ink. Over the course of her residency, the artist traveled daily across the Mesabi Range between Grand Rapids and Chisholm. By day and by night, she saw piles of mine waste—tailings and overburden—appearing as uncanny mountains along the highways where surface mining operations have reshaped the land and culture. As part of her process, LaTocha works within the traditional homeland of her Lakota and Ojibwe ancestors and considers the impact mining has upon nature, society, and culture. LaTocha has a studio in Brooklyn, New York. She received a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and an MFA from Stony Brook University in 2007. She is the recipient of a prestigious Joan Mitchell Fellowship and a Rauschenberg Residency.
Organizer: IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts, Santa Fe
Space Requirements: ca. 500 square feet, 80 linear feet
Artworks: 10 cast iron wall reliefs
Exhibition Schedule: Available after December 31, 2022
Exhibition fee: $5,000 plus incoming shipping
Contact: Manuela Well-Off Man, PhD, MoCNA chief curator, manuela.well-off-man@iaia.edu
Artist Biography
Athena LaTocha’s (Standing Rock Lakota/Keweenaw Bay Ojibwe) works explore the relationship between human-made and natural worlds, in the wake of Earthworks artists from the 1960s and 1970s. The artist is best-known for her monumental drawings using materials such as ink, lead, earth, and wood, while looking at correlations between mark-marking and displacement of materials made by industrial equipment and natural events.
Her works are inspired by her upbringing in the wilderness of Alaska. LaTocha’s process is about being immersed in these environments, while responding to the storied and, at times, traumatic cultural histories that are rooted in place. Athena has a studio in Brooklyn, New York. She received a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and an MFA from Stony Brook University in 2007. She is the recipient of a prestigious Joan Mitchell Fellowship and a Rauschenberg Residency.
Untitled (Mesabi #3)
2019
Cast iron
23 1/2 x 21 1/4 x 1 3/4 inches
20 pounds (estimated)
Untitled (Mesabi #4)
2019
Cast iron
28 3/4 x 13 3/4 x 3 1/8 inches
20 pounds (estimated)
Untitled (Mesabi #9)
2019
Cast iron
35 1/2 x 20 3/4 x 1 1/4 inches
35 pounds (estimated)
Untitled (Mesabi #10)
2019
Cast iron
44 x 20 x 3 inches
50 pounds (estimated)
Untitled (Mesabi #11)
2019
Cast iron
36 3/4 x 22 1/2 x 4 inches
30 pounds (estimated)
Categories: Traveling Exhibitions