“She MAD, S1:E4” by Martine Syms

2020 · Color · USA · EN · 11’

S1:E4 is a single episode of Martine Syms’ project SHE MAD (2015-ongoing), in which the artist emulates the sitcom format to explore depictions of blackness in the public imagination. The SHE MAD series follows the character of Martine, a stoner and graphic designer who lives in Hollywood and wishes she were an important visual artist. This particular episode begins with a conversation with a colleague that triggers a flashback to a summertime in her past. She zones out and remembers being a camper at T-Zone, a week-long empowerment programme for teenage girls founded by a supermodel and business mogul. The scene takes a disturbing turn when she recalls the leader instigating a workshop that encouraged everyone to vocalise problematic racial stereotypes. Under the guise of openness and with the intention to cast prejudice out, the opposite happens and the workshop descends into offensive rhetoric and confrontation. The misguided efforts of the privileged simply makes space for continued violence. Before long, Martine returns from her flashback and apologises to her co-worker for not listening to them.

THE DIRECTOR | MARTINE SYMS

Martine Syms has earned wide recognition for a practice that combines conceptual grit, humour and social commentary. Working across film, video, programming, photography, drawing, sculpture, performance, installation and publishing, she blurs the boundaries between mediums. Syms’s videos and installations are highly technical, reflecting her acute attention to detail in cinematography, sound, and editing. Syms uses filmmaking as a means of storytelling to uncover personal and societal truths and employs sound to foster dialogue and form/perform identities – a method of speaking through listening that renders the invisible tangible. 

Martine Syms (b. 1988, Los Angeles) obtained an MFA from Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson (2017) and a BFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2007). Syms has exhibited internationally with recent solo exhibitions including Present Goo, Sadie Coles HQ, London (2023); Ugly Plymouths, Carré d’Art – Musée d’Art Contemporain, Nîmes (2023); SHE MAD S1:E4, MCA Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (2022); Grio College, Hessel Museum of Art, Bard College, Annandale-On-Hudson (2022); She Mad: Season One, Bergen Kunsthall (2021); Neural Swamp, Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin (2021, touring to Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia in 2022); Aphrodite’s Beasts, Fridericianum, Kassel (2021); SOFT, Sadie Coles HQ, London (2021); SHE MAD: S1:E4, part of Glasgow International, Tramway, Glasgow (2021, touring to MCA Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, 2022); Ugly Plymouths, Sadie Coles HQ (offsite), London, and 5239 Melrose Avenue, presented by Bridget Donahue and Sadie Coles HQ, Los Angeles (2020); Boon, Secession, Vienna (2019); and Shame Space, Institute of Contemporary Art at Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond (2019). Recent group exhibitions include Coming Soon, Lafayette Foundation, Paris (2024); After Laughter Comes Tears, MUDAM The Contemporary Art Museum of Luxembourg (2023); Stranger in the Village, Racism in the Mirror by James Baldwin, Aargauer Kunsthaus, Aarau (2023); Kunsthal Charlottenborg Biennale, Copenhagen (2023); Signals: How Video Transformed the World, The Museum of Modern Art, New York (2023); and Mis/Communication: Language and Power in Contemporary Art, SUNY Fredonia, New York (2023). In 2022, Syms released her widely acclaimed feature-film The African Desperate. Syms has been recognised with numerous awards, including the Guggenheim Fellowship (2023); United States Artists Fellowship (2020); Future Fields Commission in Time-Based Media (2020); and Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, Chicago (2018).