Community for art’s sake

In conversation with Benjamin Critton and Heidi Korsavong of Los Angeles’ Marta gallery


Written by: Gus Turner

Photos by: Kelly Marshall

Published: November 14, 2025

Benjamin Critton and Heidi Korsavong—framed between small trees— stand outside of Marta gallery, an industrial indoor-outdoor auto repair garage with white metal siding and a cement walkway.

Benjamin Critton and Heidi Korsavong outside Marta gallery in Los Angeles’ Los Feliz neighborhood.

In the sprawl of Los Angeles, connection can feel more like a punchline than a practice. Its dwellers are linked by freeways but often separated by circumstances. And traffic. Always traffic.

But Benjamin Critton and Heidi Korsavong—the curators, co-founders, and life partners behind Los Angeles’ Marta gallery—are designing intimacy in a metropolis of missed connections. Since 2019, they’ve tapped into a broad community of friends, colleagues, and collectors to promote a more inclusive and experimental view of the arts.
The result? A radically different space where artists and designers can explore the unexpected and where community becomes the medium.

Heidi Korsavong and Benjamin Critton sit in dark gray Cosm office chairs at a white Spout Sit-to-Stand Table, with a full bookcase attached to plywood walls behind them and a Nelson Cigar Bubble Pendant Lamp above.

Behind-the-scenes at Marta gallery with Korsavong and Critton.

A smattering of office supplies are stacked in neat piles on top of a cabinet.

At Marta, there’s no arbitrary line between art and design, emerging and established, or serious and playful.

What began as Critton’s graphic design studio in Echo Park transformed when they recognized its deeper potential. The space could be more than a workplace—it could be a connector. Their opening show, Alex Reed’s pleasantly named “International Ceramics Friendship Park,” further set the vision.

“It was an excellent example and starting point of the kind of broadness and optimism … of transitional works and non-traditional works that we were excited about showing and exploring,” Critton explains of the show, a utopic vision for aging artists in the form of communal kilns, universal housing, and restorative baths. Presented as a 1:100 scale 4' x 4' architectural model, this miniature urban plan was Marta’s manifesto made tangible.

A set of tubular speckled white and green ceramic pieces and speckled brown and white ceramic pieces sit atop a wood table.

Vessels seen in the mezzanine by ceramicist, Alex Reed, whose “International Ceramics Friendship Park” was Marta’s first exhibition in 2019.

Each Marta exhibition opens the door to new collaborations—and often extends beyond a single dimension, accompanied by print takeaways, smaller token editions, or other accessible ephemera. For example, in 2020’s “Spirits of the Trees,” Lindsay Muscato and Joshua Friedman’s yakisugi furniture work inspired a charcoal-infused cocktail by artist and pal Ben Sanders, expanding the creative community while also creating a multisensory experience for attendees.

“How do we take care of our artists as they age, and can we extend their ability to practice as long as possible?” Korsavong asks. In those questions, she reveals Marta gallery’s deeper insight: Sustainability isn’t just environmental—it’s deeply human.

A black leather Eames Soft Pad Chair sits at a plywood desktop with computer and desk accessories, with modern art hanging behind on the plywood walls.

A personal workspace within Marta.

An industrial-style double-height ceiling space with dark red metal open staircase and a small galley kitchen featuring a small white Eames Table and two brick red Eames Shell Chairs with dowel legs.

The gallery’s kitchen and back-of-house space.

Accordingly, the gallery has outgrown its first location, affectionately remembered as “Little Marta,” and relocated to Los Feliz at a former indoor-outdoor auto repair garage with double-height ceilings to offer new dimensions for work, presentation, and dialogue.

Look around, and you’ll notice a leftover chain hoist that could one day display light sculptures. Their garden, landscaped by Terremoto, provides a more natural viewing environment for ceramics. A humble studio space upstairs can house traveling artists. The gallery’s negative space allows for freer circulation among patrons and the work itself.

Their programming philosophy mirrors this spatial thinking.

Benjamin Critton outside of Marta gallery, framed by a tree and red metal sculpture.

Critton and Korsavong chose a former indoor-outdoor auto repair garage with double-height ceilings in Los Feliz when they outgrew “Little Marta.”

Inside Marta gallery's double-height gallery space, with whtie walls, dark red metal stairs, and cement floor, with artwork placed intentionally around the floorplate.

Marta gallery gravitates toward artists at inflection points—creators exploring transitional possibilities, pushing beyond established bodies of work into uncharted territory.

“Phantom-22,” by Minjae Kim, embodies this approach. In the artist’s second solo presentation at Marta gallery, Kim expands on his 2021 debut, “I Was Evening All Afternoon,” using sculpture, set decoration, production design, and prop-making to construct Los Angeles itself from plaster, Douglas fir, and fiberglass. 
“There’s a chameleonic nature to his output that also defies knowing what will come next,” Critton observes. “That leaves people—ourselves included—on the happy edge of their seat.” 

Phantom-22, an exhibition by Minjae Kim featuring a plaster mountain lion and quilted fiberglass palm tree, is on display in the gallery space with cement floors and white walls.

“Phantom-22,” by Minjae Kim, featured from April 19 to June 28, 2025.

Phantom-22, an exhibition by Minjae Kim featuring quilted fiberglass sculptures and screens, is on display in the gallery space with cement floors and white walls.

That place of potential is where Marta gallery thrives, whether to platform an emerging voice or provide an accessible entry point for young collectors. In a city famous for its distances, they’ve built a space where a community has a place to connect with their curiosity. A place where anything is possible.

An illustration of an angled back silhouette view of the red-orange Shell chair on a golden brown backdrop.

The art of the Shell

To celebrate the 75th anniversary of the Eames Shell Chair, Herman Miller worked with artists on a series of posters. The collective included Marta’s own Benjamin Critton, who noted: “The chairs themselves are authored forms, but they allow something like 'co-authorship' in their would-be user or collector.”

Learn more about the Shell

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