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

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

Coming Soon, Lafayette Foundation, Paris, France

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,
Switzerland
AmericanGurl
, presented by Womxn in Windows,
Hauser & With, Los Angeles CA, USA
Kunsthal Charlottenborg Biennale, Copenhagen, Denmark
A Study in Form,
James Fuentes Gallery, New York NY, USA
Signals: How Video Transformed the World,
MoMA, The Museum of Modern Art, New York NY, USA
Mis/Communication: Language and Power in Contemporary Art, SUNY Fredonia, Fredonia NY, USA
Future Shock, Lisson Gallery, New York NY, USA

2022

Catechism, Bridget Donahue, New York NY, USA
International Exhibition of Visual Arts, American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York NY, USA
Post-Capital: Art and the Economics of the Digital Age
, Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen, Denmark (touring)

 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

https://www.ft.com/video/b352fc07-4304-4439-98fb-4520ed621dc5?playlist-name=editors-picks&playlist-offset=0

2017

Martine Syms: How to See Projects 106 with Martine Syms, MoMA Museum of Modern Art, New York NY, USA, 15 Jun

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsJan9FHjKc

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