Martine Syms

Martine Syms (b. 1988, Los Angeles (CA)) obtained a MFA from Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson (NY) (2017) and a BFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (IL) (2007). Syms has earned wide recognition for a practice that combines conceptual grit, humour and social commentary. 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. Syms’s research-based practice frequently references and incorporates theoretical models concerning performed or imposed identities, the power of the gesture, and embedded assumptions concerning gender and racial inequalities. ...

Sadie Coles HQ is a London-based contemporary art gallery representing over sixty established and emerging international artists. The gallery opened in London in 1997, with its inaugural exhibition – of new paintings by American painter John Currin – presented in parallel with an offsite show by British artist Sarah Lucas, The Law. Since its inception, Sadie Coles HQ has operated from a variety of spaces, mounting numerous off-site projects and partaking in collaborative exchanges throughout the city and abroad. The gallery frequently hosts emerging young galleries and curatorial projects in The Shop at Kingly Street, and a live events programme titled GARGLE. In September 2013, Sadie Coles HQ opened a space at 62 Kingly Street in Soho, in April 2021 a space at 8 Bury Street in St James’s and in October 2025 a third space in Mayfair: a six-storey Georgian townhouse at 17 Savile Row. ...