b. 1988, Los Angeles, U.S; lives and works in Los Angeles, U.S.

Martine Syms has a multidisciplinary practice, which spans film, photography, installation, performance, and writing. From an intersectional feminist perspective, Syms explores the pervasive archetypes and depictions of black experience in American television and media. Never deviating from the seriousness of her subject, she combines conceptualism and humour to explore the way representations of black identity and gender have been shaped throughout the history of moving image, whether that be tv, cinema or social media.

Martine Syms's recent solo exhibitions include Total, Lafayette Foundation, Paris (2024); Present Goo, Sadie Coles HQ, Davies Street, London (2023); Ugly Plymouths, Carré d’Art – Musée d’Art Contemporain, Nîmes (2023); SHE MAD S1:E4, MCA Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago IL, (2022); Neural Swamp, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia PA, (2022); 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 (2022); SHE MAD S1:E4, part of Glasgow International, Tramway, Glasgow (2021); SOFT, Sadie Coles HQ, Bury Street, London (2021); Boon, Secession, Vienna (2019); Grand Calme, Sadie Coles HQ, London (2018); FRONT International: Cleveland Triennial for Contemporary Art, Museum of Contemporary Art, Cleveland OH (2018); Projects 106: Martine Syms, MoMA Museum of Modern Art, New York NY (2017); VNXXCAS: Martine Syms, Camden Arts Centre, London (2017); The Easy Demands, CONDO: Bridget Donahue hosted by Sadie Coles HQ, London (2017); Fact & Trouble, ICA Institute of Contemporary Art, London (2016); and Notes On Gesture, Machine Project, Los Angeles CA (2015). Group exhibitions include Signals: How Video Transformed the World, MoMA, The Museum of Modern Art, New York (2023); Post-Capital: Art and the Economics of the Digital Age, Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen (2022); The Stomach and The Port, Liverpool Biennial at the Tate Liverpool, Liverpool (2021); The Body Electric, MDC MOAD Miami Dade College Museum of Art and Design, Miami FL (2020); Sammlung, TOWERMMK, MMK Museum für Moderne Kunst Frankfurt, Frankfurt, (2020); In Production: Art and the Studio System, Yuz Museum, Shanghai (2019); Whitney Biennial 2019, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York NY (2019); Colored People Time: Mundane Futures, ICA Institute of Contemporary Art at University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia PA (2019); Eckhaus Latta: Possessed, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York NY (2018); and Art in the Age of the Internet, 1989 to Today, ICA Institute of Contemporary Art Boston, Boston (2018).

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