TOTAH

There are galleries you go to because something is happening, and galleries you go back to because something happened to you there. TOTAH is the second kind. Walk in and something in you unclenches.

The gallery often displays unusual artist pairings, combining two perspectives with alchemy and love. Past shows have included generations blended: Kenny Scharf and Mel Bochner, Alighiero Boetti and Mel Bochner, Robert Feinstuch and Saul Steinberg. The approach generates unexpected conversations between past and present.

The art itself might not always dig into representations of nature, but it always manages to feel natural. You might see luminous paintings that look like a sunset without actually being one. Swaths of color on canvas that bathe you in ethereal light when you get close enough. There are environments inside paintings shown here—places, experiences, and moods you’ll recognize and want to live in.

While you’re there, ask to see the Kenny Scharf psychedelic, Day-Glo Cosmic Cavern in the basement. It is a portal to another dimension that you’ll want to spend a few minutes alone with.

David Totah grew up surrounded by art dealers. His father and uncle worked from New York and London. His mother ran a gallery showing Sumerian and Mesopotamian art. He detoured into finance before returning to dealing independently. Picasso, Rothko, Richter. He founded TOTAH on Stanton Street in 2016. The gallery carries all of that history lightly, with an eye for pairings nobody else would think to make.