Marta and JF Chen are pleased to collaboratively present ‘Stools from the JF Chen Collection,’ an exhibition and showcase of some 150 historical seating works from the legendary furniture dealer’s archive, made available over the course of the show’s run, May 05 – June 18, 2022. Viewable across two sites, the lion’s share of the works are on display at the JF Chen C–Project Space in Hollywood, with a satellite offering of several of the curators’ favorite pieces on view at Marta in Echo Park. On view weekly, Tuesday – Saturday, 11AM – 5PM, no appointment necessary.

Lindsey Muscato & Joshua Friedman of Los Angeles-based studio practice Base 10 present several works from their ongoing Kodama series at Themes + Projects in San Francisco’s Dogpatch. Initial Kodama works premiered alongside an exhibition of the same name at Marta in the Spring of 2019, each drawing upon the tools, joinery, methods, and precedents of traditional Japanese timber-framing. The pieces in Kodama—loosely translated as ‘spirits of the trees’—are made with large-scale timbers culled from salvaged Coastal Redwood and Douglas Fir in order to construct sculptural interpretations of seating, shelving, consoles, and tables. On view through June 30, 2022 at the wonderful Minnesota Street Project.

Frequent Marta cohorts A History of Frogs present ‘seven seilie bells’ at Noon Projects in Chinatown. Hung alongside the musically-inclined paintings of Chase Biado’s ‘Feywild,’ the functional cast bronze works continue AHoF’s interest in all things sonorous, lustrous, and lore-inflected. Following their joint showcase with Minjae Kim at Frieze Los Angeles earlier this year and preceding their inaugural solo exhibition at Marta this coming Winter, ‘bells’ is a joyous and gorgeous exercise in form- and sound-making.

Minjae Kim, whose inaugural solo show ‘I Was Evening All Afternoon’ debuted at Marta in the Summer of 2021, premieres a new body of work at long-standing New York design destination Matter / Matter Projects. Here, Brooklyn-based Kim places his work in direct dialogue with the mixed-media paintings of his mother, Seoul-based Myoung-Ae Lee, crafting several functional works that function almost as dual-artist diptychs when placed alongside Lee’s output. On view through July 29, 2022.

The gallery is pleased to have been featured in the April 2022 issue of storied trade publication Architectural Digest. The piece—penned by AD’s Hannah Martin and captured by photographer Seth Caplan following a visit to Marta amidst planning for the forthcoming STOOLS exhibition with JF Chen—highlights the first several years of the gallery’s operations and delves briefly into its futures: “In the works are exhibitions with Lagos, Nigeria-based designer Nifemi Marcus-Bello and landscape architectural firm Terremoto, organized in collaboration with Isaac Resnikoff of L.A.’s Project Room. The latter, like many subjects of Marta’s shows, has roots in Southern California. The gallery pays constant tribute to the rich history of its surroundings, celebrating what co-founder Critton calls ‘the things that make L.A. L.A.’ ”