MARTINE SYMS is an artist who has earned wide recognition for a practice that combines conceptual grit, humor, and social commentary.
Now Playing
The African Desperate Official Trailer, 2022
Rihanna for LV Mens SS, 2024
This Is A Studio, 2023
Maktub Gary Clark, 2024
The Non-Hero, 2021
On View
Knot Eye, Sadie Coles HQ, London, September 2026 - November 2026
Currents Program 4: The Real World, New York Film Festival, September 27 + 29, 2026
Reconstruction Sites, London Film Festival, October 18, 2026
No Title, Sculpture Milwaukee and Bronzeville Center for the Arts, Milwaukee, December 2025 - December 2026
Collection in Focus: Martine Syms, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, June 2026 - May 2027
Martine Syms on Original Sin, Mrs Prada, and Astrology, Fashion Neurosis, September 2026
Opening up a can of worms with Martine Syms, Worms Podcast, September 2026
Double Penetration with Martine Syms, NTS Radio, 2017 - 2025
The African Desperate streaming on MUBI!
Group Exhibitions
Character Development, Kadist, San Francisco, September 2026 - October 2026
Long Story Short, Museum Brandhorst, Munich, October 23, 2025 - January 31, 2027
Books
Total, Martine Syms, Éditions Lafayette Anticipations, 2024
Pictures, 2014-2017, Martine Syms, Climax Books, 2024
She Mad, Martine Syms, Sternberg Press; Bergen Kunsthall, 2024
Neural Swamp, Martine Syms, Philadelphia Museum of Art, and Yale University Press, 2022
Borrowed Lady: Martine Syms, Amy Kazymerchyk, Christina Sharpe and Diamond Stingily, SFU Galleries, 2018
Contact
Who is she?
Martine Syms is one of the defining voices of her generation. She is an artist and director whose practice spans cinema, art, and theater. Her work has been exhibited widely at major institutions including the Museum of Modern Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the ICA London, and MOCA Chicago, and is held in significant public collections such as the Whitney Museum of American Art, Tate, the Guggenheim, LACMA, and the Walker Art Center. Alongside her institutional practice, she has undertaken commissioned projects with Louis Vuitton, LeBron James, H&M, Rihanna, Nike, Prada, and Bad Bunny.
Syms is the writer and director of The African Desperate, which premiered as the closing night film of New Directors/New Films and is distributed internationally by MUBI. She has been a featured speaker at SXSW, Yale University, and Google, and is a 2025 recipient of the Arts & Letters Award. Her honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Creative Capital Award, a United States Artists Fellowship, and the Future Fields Prize, among others. She has an upcoming exhibition at Sadie Coles HQ this September, which will be followed by a solo exhibition at MOCA Los Angeles in 2027. She is currently working on her next film.