This just in. Philadelphia artist Virgil Marti, whose Versailles-meets-Brady Bunch wall treatment of the ICA ramp opens tomorrow, has installed another mylar-and-antlers environment — this one in California. “Grow Room,” the artist’s first West Coast solo museum exhibit opens in the Project Room of the Santa Monica Museum of Art September 13 and runs to November 15. Lisa Melandri, formerly at Moore College’s Levy Gallery and now at the SMMA, curated the show.
Marti’s work, which takes its cues from the 1970s (shag carpeting, sunken living rooms, candles and marijuana) has been characterized as beautiful, poignant, hypnotic, luxurious. I would add sassy to the list. [image is Marti’s new “Flowers of Romance” installed in the ICA Ramp]
