Projects 106: Martine Syms

Projects 106: Martine Syms, the first US solo museum exhibition by Martine Syms (b. 1988, Los Angeles), is an immersive installation including photographs and staged objects, and centering around a new feature-length film, Incense, Sweaters, and Ice.

Shot on location in Chicago, Los Angeles, and Clarksdale, Mississippi, Incense, Sweaters, and Ice follows three protagonists—Mrs. Queen Esther Bernetta White, Girl, and WB (“whiteboy”)—as they navigate dramas of surveillance, moving between watching, being watched, and remaining unseen. Accompanying the film is a suite of photographs sized to standard American movie posters and a metal mesh structure inspired by the geographies of the Great Migration.

Using video and performance, Syms examines representations of blackness and its relationship to narrative, vernacular, feminist thought, and radical traditions. On the occasion of the exhibition, Syms will also premiere a new lecture-performance as part of MoMA’s educational programming.

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website.