Martine Syms

Martine Syms (born 1988) is an American artist based in Los Angeles who works in publishing, video, and performance. In 2007, she coined "conceptual entrepreneur" as her area of practice.^[1] Though presently ambivalent to framing her activity by capitalist terms, her self-identified title sustains one of her main ideas: self-determination through a sustainable institution, which stems from her interest in independent music and black-owned businesses.^[2][3] Her artwork has been exhibited and screened at 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.^{[4] [5]}

Life

In 2007, Syms received an BFA (Bachelor of Fine Arts) in Film, Video, and New Media at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. In 2009, Syms graduated from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.^[6]From 2007-2011 Syms ran Golden Age, an artist-run space in Chicago. Her work often explores contemporary black identity, queer theory, and the power of language through video, performance, writing and other media.^[7] Syms is the founder of Dominica Publishing, an artists' press dedicated to exploring blackness in contemporary art and visual culture.^[8]

In 2013, Syms published “The Mundane Afrofuturist Manifesto” through Rhizome.^[9] In her manifesto Syms calls for black diasporic artistic producers to create culture that focuses on a more realistic future on earth. Syms writes:

"The imaginative challenge that awaits any Mundane Afrofuturist author who accepts that this is it: Earth is all we have. What will we do with it? The chastening but hopefully enlivening effect of imagining a world without fantasy bolt-holes: no portals to the Egyptian kingdoms, no deep dives to Drexciya, no flying Africans to whisk us off to the Promised Land...The understanding that our "twoness" is inherently contemporary, even futuristic. DuBois asks how it feels to be a problem. Ol’ Dirty Bastard says "If I got a problem, a problem's got a problem 'til it’s gone."^[10]

In 2014, Syms released Most Days, which consisted of table read of Syms screenplay about an average day looks like for a young black woman in 2050 Los Angeles. The score for the album was composed by Neal Reinalda.^[11]

In 2015, Syms was included in the New Museum Triennial Surround Audience.^[12] Her 2015 video Notes on Gesture, exhibited at Bridget Donahue Gallery in New York City and the Machine Project in Los Angeles, explores the role of seemingly insignificant bodily gestures in the creation of identity.^[13]

In 2016, Syms presented the performance "Misdirected Kiss" at the Storm King Art Center in New York's Hudson Valley, and the Broad Museum in Los Angeles. The work takes the title from the 1904 film "The Misdirected Kiss". At times resembling a Ted talk, the work picks apart issues of language and representation.^{[14] [15]}

Lectures and exhibitions

Syms has lectured at:

• Yale University
• Vassar College
• SXSW
• Project Row Houses
• Houston Museum of African American Art
• California Institute of the Arts
• University of Chicago
• Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago
• Johns Hopkins University
• Maryland Institute College of Art
• MoMA P.S.1
• the Broad Museum
• Storm King Art Center

Syms' work has been featured in solo exhibitions at:

• Institute of Contemporary Arts (London), Martine Syms: Fact & Trouble, 2016^[16]
• Karma International (Beverly Hills, California), Martine Syms: com port ment, 2016
• Human Resources (Los Angeles), Martine Syms: Black Box, 2016^[17]
• Locust Projects (Miami), Art on the Move: Martine Syms, 2015^[18]
• Bridget Donahue (New York), Martine Syms: Vertical Elevated Oblique, 2015^[19]
• White Flag Projects (Saint Louis, Missouri), Martine Syms, 2015^[20]
• Armory Center for the Arts (Pasadena, CA), Martine Syms, The Queen's English, 2014^[21]

She has been included in the following group museum exhibitions:

• New Museum (New York), 2015 Triennial: Surround Audience, 2015^[22]
• Studio Museum (Harlem, New York), Speaking of People: Ebony, Jet and Contemporary Art, 2014-2015^[23]
• Institute of Contemporary Art (Philadelphia), First Among Equals, 2012
• MCA Chicago, We Are Here: Art & Design Out of Context, 2011^[24]
• The Green Gallery (Milwaukee), YOU CAN DEPEND ON THE SUNSHINE: Paul Cowan, Marco Kane, Martine Syms, 2007^[25]
• Human Resources ^[26]

References

External links

• Official website
• Flashartonline.com
• Archive.kchungradio.org
• Vimeo.com
• In Focus: Martine Syms, in Frieze Magazine