| 1988 | Born in Los Angeles CA, USA |
| 2007 |
BFA, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago IL, USA |
| 2017 |
MFA, Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson NY, USA |
|
Lives and works in Los Angeles CA, USA |
Solo Exhibitions
| 2024 |
Total, Lafayette Foundation, Paris, France |
| 2023 |
Present Goo, Sadie Coles HQ, Davies Street, London, England Loser Back Home, Sprüth Magers, Los Angeles LA, USA Ugly Plymouths, Carré d’Art – Musée d’Art Contemporain, Nîmes, France |
| 2022 |
SHE MAD S1:E4, MCA Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago IL, USA (touring) Grio College, Hessel Museum of Art, Bard College, Annandale-On-Hudson NY, USA Neural Swamp, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia PA, USA, (touring) with Arthur Jafa, 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, Mary Porter Sesnon Art Gallery, UC University California Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz CA, USA |
| 2021 |
She Mad: Season One, Bergen Kunsthall, Bergen, Norway Neural Swamp, Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin, Italy Loot Sweets, Bridget Donahue Gallery, New York NY, USA Aphrodite’s Beasts, Fridericianum, Kassel, Germany SHE MAD S1:E4, part of Glasgow International, Tramway, Glasgow, Scotland HOMEWORK #8, Sadie Coles HQ online SOFT, Sadie Coles HQ, Bury Street, London, England |
| 2020 |
Ugly Plymouths, Sadie Coles HQ off-site: 24 Cork Street, London New Media Series, SLAM | St Louis Art Museum, St. Louis MO, USA Ugly Plymouths, 5239 Melrose Avenue, Los Angeles CA, USA, presented by Bridget Donahue Gallery and Sadie Coles HQ, London |
| 2019 |
Boon, Secession, Vienna, Austria Shame Space, Institute of Contemporary Art at Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond VA, USA |
| 2018 |
Incense Sweaters & Ice, Graham Foundation, Chicago IL, USA Big Surprise, Bridget Donahue Gallery, New York NY, USA SHE MAD: Laughing Gas, Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago IL, USA Grand Calme, Sadie Coles HQ, London Contemporary Projects: Martine Syms, Serralves Foundation, Porto, Portugal |
| 2017 |
Projects 106: Martine Syms, MoMA Museum of Modern Art, New York NY, USA VNXXCAS: Martine Syms, Camden Arts Centre, London The Easy Demands, CONDO: Bridget Donahue hosted by Sadie Coles HQ, London |
| 2016 |
Borrowed Lady, Audain Gallery, Vancouver, Canada Fact & Trouble, ICA Institute of Contemporary Art, London, England COM PORT MENT, Karma International, Beverly Hills CA, USA Black Box, Human Resources, Los Angeles CA, USA |
| 2015 |
Art on the Move: Martine Syms curated by Franklin Sirmans, Locust Projects, Miami FL, USA Notes On Gesture, Machine Project, Los Angeles CA, USA Vertical Elevated Oblique, Bridget Donahue Gallery, New York NY, USA White Flag Projects, St. Louis MO, USA |
| 2014 |
The Queen’s English, Armory Center for the Arts, Pasadena CA, USA |
Group Exhibitions
| 2024 |
Vital Signs: Artists and the Body, MoMA The Museum of Modern Art, New York NY, USA |
| 2023 |
After Laughter Comes Tears, MUDAM The Contemporary Art Museum of Luxembourg, Luxembourg Stranger in the Village, Racism in the Mirror by James Baldwin, Aargauer Kunsthaus, Aarau, |
| 2022 |
Catechism, Bridget Donahue, New York NY, USA |
| 2021 |
Post-Capital: Art and the Economics of the Digital Age, MUDAM Musée d'Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean, Luxembourg Palai, Sadie Coles HQ off-site: Palazzo Tamborino Cezzi, Lecce, Italy Love in Bright Landscapes, Perth Institute of Contemporary Art, Perth, Australia Inaugural Group Exhibition, Champ Lacombe, Biarritz, France Underexposed: Women Photographers From The Collection, High Museum of Art, Atlanta GA, USA The Stomach and The Port, Liverpool Biennial at the Tate Liverpool, Liverpool, England |
| 2020 |
For Real This Time, The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, State Art Museum of Florida, Sarasota FL, USA The Body Electric, MDC MOAD Miami Dade College Museum of Art and Design, Miami FL, USA Hello? God Is The Space Between Us, anonymous gallery, New York NY, USA and Mexico City, Mexico Sammlung, TOWERMMK, MMK Museum für Moderne Kunst Frankfurt, Frankfurt, Germany Self Maintenance Resource Center 2020, The Luminary online, St. Louis MO, USA [online] No Space, Just a Place. Eterotopia, Gucci x Daelim Museum, Seoul, South Korea Uncanny Valley: Being Human in the Age of AI, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco | de Young Legion of Honor, San Francisco CA, USA Honestly Speaking: The Word, the Body and the Internet, Auckland Art Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand William Greaves, Sondra Perry, Martine Syms, organized by Martine Syms, Princeton University, Princeton NJ, USA Colored People Time: Mundane Futures, Quotidian Pasts, Banal Presents, MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge MA, USA |
| 2019 |
Manual Override, The Shed, New York NY, USA In Production: Art and the Studio System, Yuz Museum, Shanghai, China In The Absence of Light: Gesture, Humor and Resistance in The Black Aesthetic, Stony Island Arts Bank, Chicago IL, USA Chairs Beyond Right & Wrong, R & Company, New York NY, USA The Body Electric, YBCA Yerba Buena Center For The Arts, San Francisco CA, USA It’s Urgent! – Part II, Luma Westbau, Zurich, Switzerland Dry Land, Gladstone Gallery, Gladstone 64, New York NY, USA Celebration of Our Enemies: Selections from the Hammer Contemporary Collection, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles CA, USA The Foundation of the Museum: MOCA’s Collection, The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles CA, USA Whitney Biennial 2019, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York NY, USA Straying from the Line, Schinkel Pavillon, Berlin, Germany Hypertimes, FuturDome, Milan, Italy Palimpsest, Lismore Castle Arts, Waterford, Ireland The Body Electric, Walker Art Centre, Minneapolis MN, USA Colored People Time: Mundane Futures, ICA Institute of Contemporary Art at University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia PA, USA |
| 2018 |
Art in the Age of the Internet, 1989 To Today, University of Michigan Museum of Art, Ann Arbor MI, USA (touring) Per_forming a collection. The Show Must Go_ON, Madre museo d’arte contemporanea Donnaregina, Naples, Italy An Evening of Queen White, FRONT International: Cleveland Triennial For Contemporary Art, Toby Devan Lewis Gallery, Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland, Cleveland OH, USA The 12th Gwangju Biennale Exhibition: Imagined Borders, Gwangju, South Korea Out of Easy Reach, Grunwald Gallery, School of Art, Architecture + Design, Bloomington IN, USA Succession Sounds,Kunstverein, Amsterdam Eckhaus Latta: Possessed, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York NY, USA Radically Ordinary: Scenes form Black Life in America Since 1968, Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin OH, USA Unlimited, Art Basel, Basel, Switzerland The Gallery, Michael’s, Santa Monica CA, USA Out of Easy Reach, Gallery 400 and DePaul Art Museum, Chicago IL, USA This is Utopia, to Some, Kadist Foundation, Paris, France A Lone, installed adjacent to Capitol Hill Link rail station within city-wide project, Seattle WA, USA A Page from My Intimate Journal (Part 1), Gordon Robichaux, New York NY, USA Mapping the Invisible, Yebisu International Festival for Art and Alternative Visions 2018, Tokyo Photographic Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan Art in the Age of the Internet, 1989 to Today, ICA Institute of Contemporary Art Boston, Boston MA, USA (touring) |
| 2017 |
.COM/.CN, presented by K11 Art Foundation and and Klaus Biesenbach and Peter Eleey, K11 Art Foundation pop-up space, Hong Kong Electronic Superhighway (2016-1966), Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology, Lisbon, Portugal Speech/Acts, ICA Institute of Contemporary Art Philadelphia, Philadelphia PA, USA The Public Body, Artspace, Sydney, Australia Analog Currency, The Mistake Room, Los Angeles CA, USA At This Stage, Chateau Shatto, Los Angeles CA, USA Future Generation Art Prize @ Venice 2017, organised by the Victor Pinchuk Foundation, Palazzo Contarini Polignac, Venice, Italy That I am reading backwards and into for a purpose, to go on:, The Kitchen, New York NY, USA What does one do with such a clairvoyant image?, Trinity Square Video, Toronto, Canada 56 Artillery Lane, Raven Row, London Our Words Return in Patterns (Part 1), Galerie PCP, Paris, France Whitney Biennal, as part of the John Riepenhoff installation, Whitney Museum, New York NY, USA Los Angeles - A Fiction, Musée d’art Contemporain de Lyon, Lyon, France (touring) Exhibition of 21 Artists Shortlisted for the Future Generation Art Prize 2017, Pinchuk Art Centre, Kyiv Commercial Break, Public Art Fund, New York NY, USA I Am the Organizer of My Own Archive, Dazibao, Montreal, Canada The Love Object (organized by Tom Brewer), Team Gallery, New York NY, USA |
| 2016 |
Potentially Yours, The Coming Community, Artspace NZ, Auckland, New Zealand Los Angeles - A Fiction, Astrup Fearnley Museet, Oslo (touring) Umwelt Inversion, Galerie Conradi, Hamburg, Germany Down To Write You This Poem Sat, Oakville Galleries, Oakville, Canada Cool Memories, Occidental Temporary, Paris Public, Private, Secret, International Center of Photography, New York NY, USA Made in L.A. 2016: a, the, though, only, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles CA, USA It Can Howl, Atlanta Contemporary, Atlanta GA, USA Imitation of Life: Melodrama and Race in the 21st Century, HOME, Manchester, England Electronic Superhighway (2016-1966), Whitechapel Gallery, London Autobiography, Index Stockholm- The Swedish Contemporary Art Foundation, Stockholm Cut-Up: Contemporary Collage and Cut-Up Histories through a Feminist Lens, Franklin Street Works, Stamford CT, USA |
| 2015 |
How We Work, Project Row Houses, Houston TX, USA Open House, Todd Madigan Gallery, California State University, Bakersfield CA, USA Tele-novela, ACRE TV, acretv.org Candice Lin/Martine Syms, Chan Gallery, Pomona College, Claremont CA, USA Artists’ Film Club: Avant-Noir, Volume 2, ICA Institute of Contemporary Art London, London The Daily Show, Bureau, New York NY, USA Intangibles, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis MN, USA 2015 Triennial: Surround Audience, New Museum, New York NY, USA |
| 2014 |
Rhetoric, Aran Cravey, Los Angeles CA, USA Speaking of People: Ebony, Jet and Contemporary Art, Studio Museum in Harlem, New York NY, USA First Look: Martine Syms: Reading Trayvon Martin, New Museum, New York NY, USA Another Cats Show, 356 Mission, Los Angeles CA, USA Small New Films, REDCAT, Los Angeles CA, USA Black Radical Imagination, Cooper Union, New York NY, USA |
| 2013 |
gURLs, Transfer Gallery, Brooklyn NY, USA |
| 2012 |
Act II: The Props, Public Fiction, Los Angeles CA USA First Among Equals, ICA Institute of Contemporary Art Philadelphia, Philadelphia PA, USA How to Download a Boyfriend, Badlands Unlimited, Apple iTunes The Didactic Possibilities of Film Titles, Acid Rain TV, New York NY, USA Mise-En-Scéne, Young Art, Los Angeles CA, USA |
| 2011 |
Museum as Hub: Alpha’s Bet Is Not Over Yet, New Museum, New York NY, USA We Are Here: Art & Design Out of Context, MCA Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Chicago IL, USA Three Card Monte, The Green Gallery, Milwaukee WI, USA |
Residencies
| 2019 |
The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, New York NY, USA |
Film screenings
| 2023 |
African Desperate, e-flux screening room, Brooklyn NY, USA, 21 March |
| 2022 |
African Desperate, Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, England, 17 October African Desperate, British Film Institute, London, England, 11 - 12 October African Desperate, Curzon, London, England, 05 May |
| 2021 |
SHE MAD: Laughing Gas, Incense Sweaters & Ice, Luxembourg City, Luxembourg, 21 November Memory Palace in For a Dreamer of Houses, DMA Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, 01 May Incense Sweaters & Ice, Le Cinéma Club, February – March |
| 2019 |
Sunset Kino, Salzburger Kunstverein, Salzburg, Austria, 24 July – 21 August Incense Sweaters & Ice at Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France, 28 February |
| 2018 |
Incense, Sweaters & Ice, MOCA Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland, Cleveland OH, USA, 13 July In the (Commercial) Break / Screening and Conversation with Martine Syms, École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Kadist, Paris, 21 June X-tra Presents Artist Writes #3: Incense, Sweaters & Ice, screening and conversation, 356 Mission Road, Los Angeles CA, USA, 29 April Martine Syms: Incense, Sweaters & Ice, Tramway, Glasgow Film Festival, Glasgow, Scotland, 23 February |
| 2017 | Artists’ Film Club: Incense Sweaters & Ice, ICA Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, 02 – 05 November |
| 2016 |
A Pilot for a Show About Nowhere screening in Wild Sounds, Flaherty NYC series, Anthology Film Archives, New York NY, USA, 03 October My Only Idol Is Reality screening in Truth or Dare? Experimental Cinema and the Documentary Turn, 1984 - 2016, Indigo Festival, City Museum of Ljublijana, Ljublijana, Slovenia, 08 September Martine Syms and Khalil Joseph, Memory Palace screening online in Open Window, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles CA, USA ongoing https://www.moca.org/stream/post/martine-syms-kahlil-joseph-memory-palace From Mouth to Hand, Magic Lantern Cinema, Brown University, Providence RI, USA, 19 May A Pilot for a Show About Nowhere online with Vdrome, #94, 17 – 20 April Martine Syms and Khalil Joseph, Memory Palace, screening in Intimacies, Gene Siskel Film Center, Chicago IL, USA, 22 February |
| 2015 |
Artists’ Film Club: Avant-Noir, Volume 2, ICA Institute of Contemporary Art London, London, 08 July Enter/Exit, a group screening and lecture by Steven Cairns, Kunsthalle Bern, Bern, Germany, 29 November Martine Syms: The Unreliable Narrator, screening in Conversations at the Edge Fall 2015, Gene Siskel Film Center, Chicago IL, USA, 12 November |
| 2014 |
Small New Films, REDCAT, Los Angeles CA, USA, 21 April |
Lectures and conferences
| 2021 |
Mirror with a Memory, podcast series within The Hillman Photography Initiative, hosted by Martine Syms, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh PA, USA, 01 February |
| 2020 |
William Greaves: Psychodrama, Interruption, and Circulation, Lewis Center for the Arts, Princeton University, Princeton NJ, co-organized with Fia Backström, 21 February |
| 2018 |
with Colin Self, Sadie Coles HQ, London, 01 October March Meeting 2018: Active Forms, Sharjah Art Foundation, Shuwaihen, Sharjah, UAE, 17 – 19 March 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, 26 February Lounge Talk, Yebisu International Festival for Art and Alternative Visions, Tokyo Photographic Museum, Tokyo, 09 February |
| 2017 | Martine Syms and Rizvana Bradley in conversation, Raven Row, London, England, 23 April |
| 2016 |
Friday Flights at the Getty, Getty Center, Los Angeles CA, USA, 26 August Martine Syms, Todd Madigan Gallery & Department of Art at California State University, Bakersfield CA, USA, 16 February Tip of Her Tongue: Martine Syms ‘Misdirected Kiss’, The Oculus Hall at The Broad, Los Angeles CA, USA, 21 January |
| 2015 |
A Pilot For A Show About Nowhere, PNCA Mediatheque, Portland OR, USA, 12 May Seven on Seven, 7th Edition: Empathy & Disgust, Rhizome, New York NY, USA, 02 May Lessons of the Tradition, California State University at Long Beach, Long Beach CA, USA Quality Television, Light Industry, New York NY, USA 28 April Lessons of the Tradition, Pomona College, Claremont CA, USA Nite Life, O, Miami Poetry Festival, Miami FL, USA In the Archives, Contemporary Artists Books, Los Angeles CA, USA |
| 2014 |
Lessons of the Tradition, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond VA, USA Black Radical Imagination II, REDCAT, Los Angeles CA, USA, 14 November Black Vernacular: Lessons of the Tradition, London College of Communication, London, England, 17 October Do You Follow? Art in Circulation, Rhizome/ICA Institute of Contemporary Art London, London, 15 – 17 October Black Vernacular: Lessons of the Tradition, Oberlin College & Observatory, Oberlin OH, USA, 29 April Most Days, Moogfest Biennial, Asheville NC, USA, 26 April Black Vernacular, Insights 2014 Design Lecture Series, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis MN, USA, 18 March Direct Design, Minneapolis College of Art and Design, Minneapolis MN, USA, Most Days, Arts Incubator, University of Chicago, Chicago IL, USA Direct Design, Otis College of Art and Design, Los Angeles CA, USA Becoming Artists: Critique, Originality & Identity - Managing Biography: Negotiating Audience, Yale University, New Haven CT, USA, 08 February |
| 2013 |
New Paradigms in Digital Media ‘Mainstreaming’ a DIY Culture, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore MD, USA, 13 April Conceptual Entrepreneurism, Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore MD, USA Black Vernacular: Reading New Media, SXSW, Austin TX, USA Science Fiction & What It Feels Like To (Already) Live In the Future, Actual Size, Los Angeles CA, 11 January |
| 2012 |
Real Talk, California Institute of the Arts, Valencia CA, USA, 05 November Reading Politics, Summer Forum, Chicago IL, USA |
| 2011 |
The Didactic Possibilities of Film Titles, Houston Museum of African American Art, Houston TX, USA Artist/Authors, The Gregory School, Houston TX, USA Implications & Distinctions, Project Row Houses, Houston TX, USA Future Plan and Program - Lecture by Steffani Jemison and Martine Syms, Prairie View A & M University, Prairie View TX, USA, 19 April |
Video interviews
| 2018 |
Martine Syms, LA in motion, Financial Times, 07 Feb |
| 2017 |
Martine Syms: How to See Projects 106 with Martine Syms, MoMA Museum of Modern Art, New York NY, USA, 15 Jun |
Public collections
|
Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago IL, USA Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore MD, USA Carré d'Art, Musée d'art contemporain, Nîmes, France Guggenheim Museums and Foundation, New York NY, USA / Venice, Italy / Bilbao, Spain / Abu Dhabi, UAE Hammer Museum, Los Angeles CA, USA JFABC Joan Flasch Artists' Book Collection, Chicago IL, USA KADIST, Paris and San Francisco CA, USA LACMA Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles CA, USA Leeds Art Gallery, Leeds, England MCA Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Chicago IL, USA MOCA Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles CA, USA MoMA Museum of Modern Art, New York NY, USA Museum of Contemporary Art Library, Chicago IL, USA Museum of Modern Art Library, New York NY, USA Museum Für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt, Germany Perez Art Museum, Miami FL, USA San Antonio Museum of Art, San Antonio TX, USA Serralves Foundation, Porto, Portugal Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, The Netherlands Studio Museum in Harlem, New York NY, USA Tate, London, England Walker Art Center, Minneapolis MN, USA Whitney Museum of American Art, New York NY, USA |
Awards and fellowships
| 2023 |
Guggeheim Fellowship |
| 2022 |
Herb Albert Award in the Arts |
| 2021 |
Creative Capital Award |
| 2020 |
Google Artists + Machine Intelligence Grants Future Fields Commission in Time-Based Media, awarded by The Philadelphia Museum of Art and Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo ToftH Artist Fellow, Berggruen Institute United States Artists Fellowship |
| 2018 |
Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, Chicago IL, USA |