MoMA Presents the First U.S. Solo Museum Exhibition of the Work of Martine Syms

NEW YORK, NY, April 12, 2017—The Museum of Modern Art presents Projects 106: Martine Syms, the first solo museum exhibition in the United States of the work of Martine Syms (b. 1988) from May 27 through July 16. The exhibition features an immersive installation centering on a never-before-seen feature-length film, Incense, Sweaters, and Ice (2017). Shot on location, the film travels from Mississippi to Los Angeles by way of St. Louis, reflecting the legacies of the Great Migration. The narrative follows three protagonists—Girl, her great-aunt Mrs. Queen Esther Bernetta White, and her new acquaintance WB (“whiteboy”)—as they move between watching, being watched, and remaining unseen. Accompanying the film is a suite of prints that superimpose photographic stills from Incense, Sweaters, and Ice onto found American movie posters.

An artist-designed augmented reality (AR) app is being planned in conjunction with the exhibition and will allow viewers to unlock additional content from the film’s narrative through the posters, creating an exchange between audience and artist, still and moving images, and screens both public and private. Using original and found content, Syms shows how identity production and image production are intertwined activities in contemporary life, particularly due to the public’s constant interaction with and appropriation of mass culture for personal social media. In crafting this personal narrative, it is now common to incorporate images that are only experienced through the mediating lens of mass culture. Using this as a departure point, Syms's film explores a shared cultural inheritance of television shows, advertisements, police cameras, Vines, and original photography to create a dynamic collage about familial, cultural, and historical legacy. Projects 106: Martine Syms is organized by Jocelyn Miller, Curatorial Associate, MoMA PS1.