Weho, Los Angeles
Martine Syms
COM PORT MENT
Karma InternationalKarma International Los Angeles is pleased to present COM PORT MENT, a solo exhibition of new work by Martine Syms. COM PORT MENT marks the gallery’s second exhibition in their new Los Angeles space and the gallery’s first presentation of Syms’s work. Syms often brings a personal outlook to greater social and political issues in her video, photographic, and text-based works. For this particular body of work, Syms has created a series of videos inspired by the lessons of the tradition put forth by poet Kevin Young’s recent book The Grey Album: On the Blackness on Blackness. For her installation at Karma International Syms presents a suite of photographs and text works that function as an amalgamation of the lessons she’s inherited from the black tradition. Her video work from the Lessons series will be on view at Human Resources Gallery, also in Los Angeles, until February 27th. Martine Syms is an artist based in Los Angeles. Her artwork has been exhibited and screened extensively, including recent presentations at Bridget Donahue Gallery, the New Museum, Kunsthalle Bern, The Studio Museum in Harlem, Index Stockholm, MOCA Los Angeles, and MCA Chicago. She has lectured at Yale University, SXSW, California Institute of the Arts, University of Chicago, Johns Hopkins University, and MoMA PS1, among other venues. From 2007–11, Syms directed Golden Age, a project space focused on printed matter. She is the founder of Dominica, a publishing imprint dedicated to exploring blackness in visual culture. Forthcoming exhibitions include Electronic Superhighway (2016-1966), Whitechapel Gallery, London and Fact & Trouble, Institute of Contemporary Arts, London.