Opening Reception Saturday February 6, 7-10pm

On View February 6 – 27, Wednesday thru Sunday 12-6pm or by appointment

Black Box is an exhibition of sixty new and recent videos by Martine Syms. These works are part of a long, incomplete poem in 180 sections titled Lessons. Each lesson is exactly thirty seconds in duration.

“Syms simulates flipping through television channels, repurposing advertisements and listings culled from TV Guide. The flickering, repetitive sensation of moving from one neatly contained narrative to the next creates a glut of signifiers through which to wade. The edges of visual memory become less resolute and are subject to confusion and total collapse. The televisual presents a multiplicity of entries and departures, which Syms puts in the service of defining possibilities for a culturally specific aesthetic tradition. That definition, however, remains assertively porous.” — Ayesha B. Jones

Martine Syms is an artist based in Los Angeles, born 1988. She is the founder of Dominica, a publishing imprint dedicated to exploring blackness in visual culture. Her artwork has been exhibited and screened extensively, including presentations at the New Museum, The Studio Museum in Harlem, Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles, MCA Chicago, Green Gallery, Gene Siskel Film Centre, and White Flag Projects. She has lectured at Yale University, SXSW, California Institute of the Arts, University of Chicago, Johns Hopkins University, and MoMA PS1, among other venues. Syms’ recently presented the exhibition Vertical Elevated Oblique at Bridget Donahue Gallery, New York. Forthcoming exhibitions include Electronic Superhighway 2016-1966, Whitechapel Gallery, London and COM PORT MENT at Karma International, Los Angeles.