Martine Syms

Martine Syms (born 1988) is an American artist residing in Los Angeles, specializing in various mediums including publishing, video, installation, and performance.

Her artistic endeavors revolve around themes of identity, particularly the representation of the self, with a focus on subjects like feminism and black culture. Syms frequently employs humor and social commentary as vehicles for exploration within her work. Martine Syms is represented by Sadie Coles HQ and Sprüth Magers.

Early life Martine Syms was born in 1988 in Los Angeles. She grew up in the Altadena suburb of the city alongside her three siblings. During her formative years, she received homeschooling from her parents between the ages of 7 and 12. Recognizing her passion at a young age, Syms expressed her aspiration to become an artist early on. Reflecting on her homeschooling experience, Syms has commented on the challenges of accessing quality education in her area, stating, "The area I grew up in didn't have the best public schools, and it was hard to get all of us into the same private school—for a lot of racist reasons, from what it sounds like." Both of Syms' parents fostered her creative development, with her mother having an interest in art and writing and her father being an amateur photographer. During high school period, she participated in the California State Summer School for the Arts (CSSSA) at CalArts.

In 2007, Syms earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) degree in film, Video, and New Media from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She later pursued a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) degree at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, completing her studies in 2017.

Career From 2007 to 2012, Syms was a co-director of Golden Age, an artist-run space in Chicago.

In 2015, Syms participated in the New Museum Triennial Surround Audience. During the same year, her video titled "Notes on Gesture" was exhibited at Bridget Donahue Gallery in New York City and the Machine Project in Los Angeles. The video delves into the significance of seemingly little bodily gestures in shaping one's identity.

Syms collaborated with Willo Perron and Associates in assisting with the writing of Kanye West's speech at the 2015 MTV Video Music Awards, where he announced his candidacy for the 2020 Presidential Election.

In 2016, Syms presented the performance piece "Misdirected Kiss" at the Storm King Art Center in New York's Hudson Valley, as well as at the Broad Museum in Los Angeles. The work's title is inspired by the 1904 film "The Misdirected Kiss." Incorporating elements reminiscent of a TED talk, the performance critically examines issues related to language and representation. In the same year, Syms held a solo exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, titled "Martine Syms: Fact & Trouble," which featured her video series "Lessons." Additionally, Syms was shortlisted for the Future Generation Art Prize and received the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation grant in the same year. Syms joined the faculty of the California Institute of the Arts in September 2018 and was awarded the Graham Foundation Fellowship for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts. She also received the Future Fields Commission in time-based media from the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo.

Syms founded Dominica Publishing, an artists' press dedicated to exploring Black identity in contemporary art and visual culture.

In 2022, Syms made her directorial debut with the film The African Desperate, which premiered at the International Film Festival Rotterdam. The distribution rights for the film were acquired by the streaming service Mubi.

Conceptual Entrepreneur The concept of artists seeking financial self-determination is a recurring theme in modern and contemporary art. Artists such as Marcel Duchamp, Marcel Broodthaers, Piero Manzoni, David Hammons, and Joe Scanlan have explored this idea. Scanlan, in particular, articulated this concept in his text "People in Trade," which highlights the business potential of conceptual art. Scanlan argues that artists with unique skills and production methods, such as Agnes Martin and David Hammons, embody personal branding, value-adding, and just-in-time production principles. These artists have often been overlooked for their contributions to state-of-the-art business innovations. Syms embraces the notion of self-determination through a sustainable institution, influenced by her interest in independent music and black-owned businesses. Her artwork has been showcased in various venues, including Human Resources, Bridget Donahue Gallery, the New Museum, Kunsthalle Bern, The Studio Museum in Harlem, Index Stockholm, MOCA Los Angeles, and MCA Chicago. Currently, Syms holds a teaching position at the California Institute of the Arts. She often incorporates found footage from contemporary media to convey her thematic concerns. Syms values the concise nature of video as a means of transmitting important information and considers herself a collector of "orphaned media." even though she abstains from using social media. Syms finds enjoyment in exploring how self-constructed identities manifest through these platforms. This publication examines the performance of black identity in contemporary cinema and was part of a collaborative effort led by Steffani Jemison.

In 2013, Syms published The Mundane Afrofuturist Manifesto on Rhizome. The manifesto advocates for black diasporic artistic producers to focus on creating culture that envisions a realistic future on Earth. Syms emphasizes the challenge of imagining a world without fantasy realms or escapism, urging a contemporary and futuristic perspective. Quoting DuBois and Ol' Dirty Bastard, she reflects on the notion of "twoness" and how it feels to be seen as a problem.

In 2014, Syms released Most Days, featuring a table read of her screenplay that depicts an average day in the life of a young black woman in 2050 Los Angeles. The album's score was composed by Neal Reinalda.

Personal life Syms participates in soccer as a player for Sativa Football Club, assuming the position of midfielder.

Collections, Lectures and Exhibitions

Public Collections Source: William Greaves: Psychodrama, Interruption, and Circulation, Lewis Center for the Arts, Princeton University, Princeton NJ, co-organized with Fia Backström, Feb 21, 2020 with Colin Self, Sadie Coles HQ, London, Oct 1, 2018 March Meeting 2018: Active Forms, Sharjah Art Foundation, Shuwaihen, Sharjah, UAE, Mar 17-19, 2018 Experience It: Martine Syms, A conversation with Martine Syms, Sharon Hayes and Jon Rafman, The Lab with California College of the Arts, San Francisco CA, USA, February 26, 2018 Lounge Talk, Yebisu International Festival for Art and Alternative Visions, Tokyo Photographic Museum, Tokyo, Japan, February 9, 2018 Martine Syms and Rizvana Bradley in conversation, Raven Row, London, England, April 23, 2017 Friday Flights at the Getty, Getty Center, Los Angeles CA, USA, August 26, 2016 Martine Syms, Todd Madigan Gallery & Department of Art at California State University, Bakersfield CA, USA, February 16, 2016 Tip of Her Tongue: Martine Syms 'Misdirected Kiss''', The Oculus Hall at The Broad, Los Angeles CA, USA, January 21, 2016 A Pilot For A Show About Nowhere, PNCA Mediatheque, Portland OR, USA, May 12, 2015 Seven on Seven, 7th Edition: Empathy & Disgust, Rhizome, New York NY, USA, May 2, 2015 Lessons of the Tradition, California State University at Long Beach, Long Beach CA, USA, 2015 Quality Television, Light Industry, New York NY, USA April 28, 2015 Lessons of the Tradition, Pomona College, Claremont CA, USA, 2015 Nite Life, O, Miami Poetry Festival, Miami FL, USA, 2015 In the Archives, Contemporary Artists Books, Los Angeles CA, USA, 2015 Lessons of the Tradition, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond VA, USA, 2014 Black Radical Imagination II, REDCAT, Los Angeles CA, USA, November 14, 2014 Black Vernacular: Lessons of the Tradition, London College of Communication, London, England, October 17, 2014 Do You Follow? Art in Circulation, Rhizome/ICA Institute of Contemporary Art London, London, England, Oct 15-17, 2014 Black Vernacular: Lessons of the Tradition, Oberlin College & Observatory, Oberlin OH, USA, April 29, 2014 Most Days, Moogfest Biennial, Asheville NC, USA, April 26, 2014 Black Vernacular, Insights 2014 Design Lecture Series, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis MN, USA, March 18, 2014 Direct Design, Minneapolis College of Art and Design, Minneapolis MN, USA, 2014 Most Days, Arts Incubator, University of Chicago, Chicago IL, USA, 2014 Direct Design, Otis College of Art and Design, Los Angeles CA, USA, 2014 Becoming Artists: Critique, Originality & Identity - Managing Biography: Negotiating Audience, Yale University, New Haven CT, USA, February 8, 2014 New Paradigms in Digital Media 'Mainstreaming' a DIY Culture, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore MD, USA, April 13, 2013 Conceptual Entrepreneurism, Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore MD, USA, 2013 Black Vernacular: Reading New Media, SXSW, Austin TX, USA, 2013 Science Fiction & What It Feels Like To (Already) Live In the Future, Actual Size, Los Angeles CA, January 11, 2013 Real Talk, California Institute of the Arts, Valencia CA, USA, November 5, 2012 Reading Politics, Summer Forum, Chicago IL, USA, 2012 The Didactic Possibilities of Film Titles, Houston Museum of African American Art, Houston TX, USA, 2011 Artist/Authors, The Gregory School, Houston TX, USA, 2011 Implications & Distinctions, Project Row Houses, Houston TX, USA, 2011 Future Plan and Program - Lecture by Steffani Jemison and Martine Syms, Prairie View A & M University, Prairie View TX, USA, April 19, 2011

Solo exhibitions Armory Center for the Arts (Pasadena, CA), Martine Syms, The Queen's English, 2014 Locust Projects (Miami), Art on the Move: Nite Life, 2015 White Flag Projects (Saint Louis, Missouri), Martine Syms, 2015 Machine Project (Los Angeles, CA), Notes on Gesture, 2015 Audain Gallery (Vancouver, Canada), Borrowed Lady, 2016 Karma International (Beverly Hills, California), Martine Syms: com port ment, 2016 Institute of Contemporary Art (London, England), Martine Syms: Fact & Trouble, 2016 Museum of Modern Art (New York), Projects 106: Martine Syms, 2017 Camden Arts Centre (London, England), VNXXCAS: Martine Syms, 2017 Graham Foundation (Chicago IL), Incense Sweaters & Ice, 2018 New Museum (New York), Museum as Hub: Alpha's Bet Is Not Over Yet, 2011 The Green Gallery (Milwaukee), Three Card Monte, 2011 Badlands Unlimited, Apple iTunes, How to Download a Boyfriend, 2012 Project Row Houses (Houston, Texas), How We Work, 2015 The Coming Community, Artspace NZ (Auckland, New Zealand), Potentially Yours, 2016 Atlanta Contemporary (Atlanta), It Can Howl, 2016 HOME (Manchester, England), Imitation of Life: Melodrama and Race in the 21st Century, 2016 Whitechapel Gallery (London, England), Electronic Superhighway (2016-1966), 2016 Index Stockholm- The Swedish Contemporary Art Foundation (Stockholm, Sweden), Autobiography, 2016 Franklin Street Works (Stamford), Cut-Up: Contemporary Collage and Cut-Up Histories through a Feminist Lens, 2016 K11 Art Foundation pop-up space (Hong Kong).COM/.CN, presented by K11 Art Foundation and Klaus Biesenbach and Peter Eleey, 2017 Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology (Lisbon, Portugal), Electronic Superhighway (2016-1966), 2017 ICA Institute of Contemporary Art Philadelphia (Philadelphia), Speech/Acts, 2017 Artspace (Sydney, Australia), The Public Body, 2017 The Mistake Room (Los Angeles), Analog Currency, 2017 Chateau Shatto (Los Angeles), At This Stage, 2017 Palazzo Contarini Polignac (Venice, Italy), Future Generation Art Prize @ Venice 2017, organised by the Victor Pinchuk Foundation, 2017 The Kitchen (New York), That I am reading backwards and into for a purpose, to go on:, 2017 Trinity Square Video (Toronto, Canada), What does one do with such a clairvoyant image?, 2017 Raven Row (London, England), 56 Artillery Lane, 2017 Galerie PCP (Paris, France), Our Words Return in Patterns (Part 1), 2017 Whitney Museum (New York), Whitney Biennal, as part of the John Riepenhoff installation, 2017 Musée d'art Contemporain de Lyon (Lyon, France), Los Angeles - A Fiction, 2017 Pinchuk Art Centre (Kyiv, Ukraine), Exhibition of 21 Artists Shortlisted for the Future Generation Art Prize 2017, 2017 Public Art Fund (New York), Commercial Break, 2017 Dazibao (Montreal, Canada), I Am the Organizer of My Own Archive, 2017 Team Gallery (New York), The Love Object (organized by Tom Brewer), 2017 University of Michigan Museum of Art (Ann Arbour MI), Art in the Age of the Internet, 1989 To Today, 2018 Madre museo d'arte contemporanea Donnaregina (Naples, Italy), Per_forming a collection. The Show Must Go_ON, 2018 FRONT International: Cleveland Triennial For Contemporary Art, Toby Devan Lewis Gallery, Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland, An Evening of Queen White, 2018 Gwangju (South Korea), The 12th Gwangju Biennale Exhibition: Imagined Borders, 2018 Grunwald Gallery, School of Art, Architecture + Design (Bloomington IN), Out of Easy Reach, 2018 Kunstverein (Amsterdam, the Netherlands), Succession Sounds, 2018 Whitney Museum of American Art (New York), Eckhaus Latta: Possessed, 2018 Allen Memorial Art Museum (Oberlin OH), Radically Ordinary: Scenes form Black Life in America Since 1968, 2018 Art Basel (Basel, Switzerland), Unlimited, 2018 The Gallery, Michael's (Santa Monica CA), 2018 Gallery 400 and DePaul Art Museum (Chicago IL), Out of Easy Reach, 2018 Kadist Foundation (Paris, France), This is Utopia, to Some, 2018 A Lone, installed adjacent to Capitol Hill Link rail station within city-wide project, Seattle WA, 2018 Gordon Robichaux (New York), A Page from My Intimate Journal (Part 1), 2018 Tokyo Photographic Art Museum (Tokyo, Japan), Yebisu International Festival for Art and Alternative Visions 2018, Mapping the Invisible, 2018 ICA Institute of Contemporary Art Boston (Boston MA), Art in the Age of the Internet, 1989 to Today, 2018 The Shed (New York), Manual Override, 2019 Yuz Museum (Shanghai, China), tongewölbe T25 (Ingolstadt, Germany), In Production: Art and the Studio System, 2019 Stony Island Arts Bank (Chicago IL), In the Absence of Light: Gesture, Humor and Resistance in The Black Aesthetic: Selections from the Beth Rudin DeWoody Collection, 2019 Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (San Francisco CA), The Body Electric, 2019 Luma Westbau, (Zürich Switzerland), It's Urgent! – Part II, 2019 Gladstone Gallery (New York), Dry Land, 2019 Hammer Museum (Los Angeles), Celebration of Our Enemies: Selections from the Hammer Contemporary Collection, 2019 Los Angeles, The Foundation of the Museum: MOCA's Collection, Museum of Contemporary Art, 2019 R & Company (New York), Chairs Beyond Right & Wrong, 2019 Whitney Museum of American Art (New York), Whitney Biennial 2019, 2019 Schinkel Pavillon (Berlin, Germany), Straying from the Line, 2019 FuturDome (Milan, Italy), Hypertimes, 2019 Lismore Castle Arts (Waterford, Ireland), Palimpsest, 2019 Walker Art Centre (Minneapolis MN), The Body Electric, 2019 ICA Institute of Contemporary Art at University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia PA), Colored People Time: Mundane Futures, 2019 MDC MOAD Miami Dade College Museum of Art and Design (Miami FL), The Body Electric, 2020 The Luminary online (St. Louis MO), Self Maintenance Resource Center 2020, 2020 TOWER MMK, MMK Frankfurt, (Frankfurt am Main Germany), Sammlung, 2020 Gucci x Daelim Museum (Seoul, South Korea), No Space, Just a Place. Eterotopia, 2020 Auckland Art Gallery (Auckland, New Zealand), Honestly Speaking: The Word, the Body and the Internet, 2020 de Young Museum (San Francisco CA), Uncanny Valley: Being Human in the Age of AI, 2020 Princeton University (Princeton NJ), William Greaves, Sondra Perry, Martine Syms, organized by Martine Syms, 2020 MIT List Visual Arts Center (Cambridge MA), Colored People Time: Mundane Futures, Quotidian Pasts, Banal Presents, 2020 Mary Porter Sesnon Art Gallery, UC University California Santa Cruz (Santa Cruz CA), We Are Not Aliens: Arthur Jafa, Martine Syms, and Afro-Futurism 2.0, as part of Beyond the End of the World: Approaches in Contemporary Art Seminar, 2020