Public Pool Gallery / Los Angeles, CA / 2018

“For Vinyl Lining, Marty presents recreations and reprintings of 5 found objects, suspended in the water on custom built floating foam pedestals. At the other end of the Pool plays a loop of 5 videos, some explicit in their connection to the objects floating next to them and others simply hinting at it. In the video Gift Wrap, for example, a digital recreation of vintage wrapping paper slowly curls up to reveal what appears to be some form of commercial packaging. There is little context to the relationship between the two images, unless the viewer were to observe the recreation of a Casio Keyboard box floating nearby. Close inspection reveals the same commercial packaging seen on the screen, as well as a tiny scrap of the wrapping paper, seemingly born from when the box was given as a gift. Marty’s symbiotic video-to-sculpture relationship creates expanded, aestheticized mythologies for objects that came to him with no discernible history. Marty invites the viewer to act as a detective, analyzing the records, boxes, and manuals, piecing together a narrative based on how their previous owners altered them.” – Bren Perry

exhibition booklet – PDF