Screening programme:
SHE MAD: Laughing Gas (2016), 6’59’’
Incense Sweaters & Ice (2017), 1:09’00

This screening presents two video works by Martine Syms, whose work Mythiccbeing (2018) is included in the exhibition Post-Capital: Art and the Economics of the Digital Era, which is on view at Mudam until 16.01.2022. Using a combination of video, installation and performance, often interwoven with explorations into technique and narrative, Syms examines representations of blackness and its relationship to vernacular, feminist thought, and radical traditions.

The programme combines the first episode SHE MAD: Laughing Gas, from the artist’s video series, with the feature film Incense Sweaters & Ice. Drawing on the genre of sitcoms, SHE MAD series address issues of race, culture and representation via short, autobiographically inspired stories. Similarly, the feature-length film Incense Sweaters & Ice mixes different perspectives, following three characters 'as they navigate dramas of surveillance, moving between watching, being watched, and remaining unseen.' These works play with the way identity is performed in the 21st century where digital technologies continue to merge public and private spheres.

Martine Syms (b. 1988, Los Angeles) has held recent solo exhibitions at Bergen Kunsthall; Tramway, Glasgow; Saint Louis Art Museum; Fridericianum, Kassel (2021); Secession, Vienna (2019); Institute for Contemporary Art at Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond (2019); Graham Foundation, Chicago; Art Institute of Chicago (2018); Museum of Modern Art, New York (2017); Camden Arts Centre, London (2017) and the Institute of Contemporary Art, London (2016). Her work was presented within significant surveys such as the Liverpool Biennial and Glasgow International (both 2021), and the 12th Gwangju Biennale (2018); and in group exhibitions at Perth Institute of Contemporary Art; High Museum of Art, Atlanta (2021); Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt; State Art Museum of Florida, Sarasota; Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco; Auckland Art Gallery; MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge (2020); Yuz Museum, Shanghai; Yerba Buena Center For The Arts, San Francisco Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; and Museo Madre, Naples (2018). Martine Syms lives and works in Los Angeles.