Opening
Saturday, April 27
Noon – 3PM

On View
April 27 – June 08 2024

Wednesday – Saturday
Noon – 5PM

Marta
3021 Rowena Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90039

Marta is delighted to present Rites of Spring, a group exhibition of works by twenty-two artists across eighteen practices, all of whom have in some way animated the gallery’s roster since its inception in 2019. Inspired by the invitation of the season—one that pays homage to the power, and necessity, of rebirth—this gathering recontextualizes each of its attendant works through the formation of new relationships, celebrating the inherent symbiosis of their material, functional, and conceptual frameworks.

Titled in reference to the American hardcore punk band, as well as Igor Stravinsky’s symphonic ballet of (nearly) the same name, this grouping, like its musical forebears, both embraces and confounds expectations of the vernal. There are the bold gestures of Virva Hinnemo’s pastoral scene, Sign Language, her solid brushstrokes enlivening the canvas in browns, blues, and subtle pinks; the dark flexures of Doug McCollough’s Rosebud, a static-kinetic sculpture whose painted ash wood teems with the spirit of the loamiest soil; the abundant green glass of Ross Hansen’s Floret Table; the shining aluminum of Nifemi Marcus-Bello’s sandcast TM Vessels, which grace the floor like pools of water waiting to reflect the face of Narcissus: the beautiful hunter who—after being fatally entranced by his own visage—returned to earth as a flower.

All of these works, whether previously presented in isolation or in concert with one another, whether debuted at Design Miami, Frieze No. 9 Cork Street in London, or a prior exhibition at the affectionately nicknamed ‘Little Marta’ (the gallery’s former location on Sunset Boulevard in Echo Park), are provided the opportunity for renewed activation at the current center of Marta’s programmatic inquiries—a reminder that the present is, by definition, a perennial condition of the past.