Martine Syms facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Martine Syms
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Martine Syms
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| Born | 1988 (age 36–37) Los Angeles, U.S.
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Martine Syms (born 1988) is an American artist from Los Angeles. She is known for creating art in many different ways, including making videos, installations, and performances.
Much of her art explores ideas about identity and how people see themselves. She often focuses on topics like feminism and Black culture. Syms uses humor and social commentary to share her ideas. In 2007, she came up with the term "Conceptual Entrepreneur" to describe her unique way of making art.
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Early Life and Education
Martine Syms was born in 1988 in Los Angeles, California. She grew up in the suburb of Altadena with her three siblings. From age 7 to 12, her parents homeschooled her. Syms knew she wanted to be an artist from a young age.
Her parents encouraged her creativity. Her mother was interested in art and writing, and her father was an amateur photographer. As a teenager, she attended a special summer program for the arts at the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts).
In 2007, Syms graduated from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago with a degree in Film, Video, and New Media. Ten years later, in 2017, she earned a Master of Fine Arts degree from Bard College in New York.
Artistic Career
From 2007 to 2012, Syms helped run Golden Age, a space in Chicago where artists could show their work.
In 2015, her video "Notes on Gesture" was shown in galleries in New York City and Los Angeles. The video explores how small body movements, like hand gestures, are an important part of a person's identity.
That same year, Syms worked with a team to help write Kanye West's speech for the 2015 MTV Video Music Awards. In the speech, West announced he planned to run for president in 2020.
Major Projects and Exhibitions
In 2016, Syms performed a piece called "Misdirected Kiss" at the Storm King Art Center in New York and at The Broad museum in Los Angeles. The performance was like a TED Talk and looked at how language and images shape our world.
Later that year, she had her own exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London. It was called "Martine Syms: Fact & Trouble" and included a video series she made called "Lessons."
In 2017, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City hosted her solo exhibition, "Projects 106: Martine Syms." The main part of the show was her feature-length film, "Incense, Sweaters & Ice."
In 2022, Syms directed her first movie, The African Desperate. It was shown at the International Film Festival Rotterdam. The streaming service Mubi later bought the rights to show the film online.
What is a "Conceptual Entrepreneur"?
Syms calls herself a "Conceptual Entrepreneur." This term describes an artist who is also in charge of the business side of their art. They think about how to create and share their work in a way that allows them to be independent.
This idea is inspired by Syms's interest in independent music and Black-owned businesses. She believes artists can build their own successful institutions.
Syms has taught art at the California Institute of the Arts since 2018. She has also received many awards and grants for her work.
Artistic Style and Themes
Syms's art explores what it means to be Black in today's world. She also looks at ideas from queer theory and the power of language. She uses many types of media, including video, performance, and writing.
She often uses "found footage," which are clips from TV, movies, and the internet, to create something new. She sees herself as a collector of "orphaned media," or media that has been forgotten or separated from its original context.
Syms is interested in how people use smartphones to build their identities, even though she does not use social media herself. She also uses humor, like parody and sarcasm, to get her message across.
Personal Life
In her free time, Syms plays soccer as a midfielder for a team called Sativa Football Club.
Public Collections
Art by Martine Syms is featured in the collections of many famous museums around the world, including:
- Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago
- Guggenheim Museum, New York
- Hammer Museum, Los Angeles
- Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Los Angeles
- Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (MCA), Chicago
- Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York
- Studio Museum in Harlem, New York
- Walker Art Center, Minneapolis
- Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
