At most fairs, nearly all the booths look just about the same: a series of white walls with paintings hanging on them, some with sculptures in the center. This is certainly not the formula used by LA’s Parker Gallery, whose booth looks and feels like no other at Frieze. Gallery artist Marley Freeman is showing a series of new paintings, drawing inspiration from Textile Artifacts, an antique textile dealership in LA’s Mid-City neighborhood founded by her father, Paul, in 1990. She and her brother, Jordan, are now involved in the business, which has lent antique textiles and produced replicas for over 100 movies.
For this installation, the Freemans together selected some of their most beloved textiles, which are exhibited hanging, flush from the top of the booth wall. The textiles were made between the 1880s and the 1980s, and were primarily sourced from Europe and New England. Atop these textiles, Marley is showing her abstract paintings. They feature layers of paint in different opacities, give them an illusion of movement that’s amplified by the patterning of the tapestries behind these works.
Paul started collecting textiles in 1979 and eventually began selling them. Over the course of his career, he was a regular at the Brimfield Antique Flea Market in Massachusetts, the country’s largest flea market, and starting in the ’90s, he did several European trade shows a year. “For 15 years, I was on the treadmill,” he told ARTnews during the VIP preview. An art fair is a trade show all the same, after all, and Paul seemed at home as he worked the booth. Paper receipt pad in hand, he was making sales during the first hour.
