Education
In 2007, Syms received an Bachelor of Fine Arts (Bachelor of Fine Arts) in Film, Video, and New Media at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
In 2007, Syms received an Bachelor of Fine Arts (Bachelor of Fine Arts) in Film, Video, and New Media at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
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, Multimedia over Coax Alliance Los Angeles, and Master of Computer Applications Chicago. In 2009, syms was a recent graduate of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and living in the same city alongside artist Marco Braunschweiler.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.
In 2013, Syms published “The Mundane Afrofuturist Manifesto” through Rhizome.
In her manifesto Syms calls for black diasporic artistic producers to create culture that focuses on a more realistic future on earth. Syms writes:
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 Los Angeles
The score for the album was composed by Neal Reinalda. In 2015, Syms was included in the New Museum Triennial Surround Audience.
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.
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 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.
Syms has lectured at:
Yale University
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 Process Status 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
Karma International (Beverly Hills, California), Martine Syms: com port ment, 2016
Human Resources (Los Angeles), Martine Syms: Black Box, 2016
Locust Projects (Miami), Art on the Move: Martine Syms, 2015
Bridget Donahue (New York), Martine Syms: Vertical Elevated Oblique, 2015
White Flag Projects (Saint Louis, Missouri), Martine Syms, 2015
Armory Center for the Arts (Pasadena, California), Martine Syms, The Queen"s English, 2014
She has been included in the following group museum exhibitions:
New Museum (New York), 2015 Triennial: Surround Audience, 2015
Studio Museum (Harlem, New York), Speaking of People: Ebony, Jet and Contemporary Art, 2014-2015
Institute of Contemporary Art (Philadelphia), First Among Equals, 2012
Master of Computer Applications Chicago, We Are Here: Art & Design Out of Context, 2011
The Green Gallery (Milwaukee), YOU CAN DEPEND Ontario THE SUNSHINE: Paul Cowan, Marco Kane, Martine Syms, 2007
Human Resources.