SCREENING: MARTINE SYMS' THE AFRICAN DESPERATE

Limited capacity, first come, first serve
Free admission

In cooperation with MUBI, the JULIA STOSCHEK FOUNDATION presents a preview of artist and filmmaker Martine Syms’ (*1988) debut feature film, The African Desperate (2022), before its German release on 21 October.

The film follows twenty-four hours in the life of artist Palace Bryan, played by fellow-artist Diamond Stingily (*1990), as she graduates from an MFA program at a prestigious art school in upstate New York. Amidst an idyllic backdrop and a night of debauchery, Palace’s encounters with her all-white pro-fessors and privileged fellow students are marked by admiration, incomprehension and isolation in equal measure. The film, sometimes inspired by Syms’s experiences and inter-spersed with numerous cameo appearances, sketches a satirical picture of the two-faced art system with its questionable institutions of knowledge production.

Written and directed by Martine Syms and starring artist Diamond Stingily, the film is co-written by Rocket Caleshu and edited by Nicole Otero with cinematography by Daisy Zhou and an original score by Aunt Sister, Colin Self, and Ben Babbit.

The African Desperate is co-produced by Dominica Inc., Ways & Means, Sadie Coles HQ, Bridget Donahue Gallery, and EMPAC at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York.

Following the screening, there will be a Q&A between Martine Syms, curator Lisa Long, and the audience.
The screening and the Q&A will be in English.

The screening will take place in non-barrier-free parts of JSC Berlin. We are happy to offer assistance with prior notification.

Martine Syms examines representations of Blackness and the impact of digital media on everyday life within her multidisciplinary practice comprising film, video, installation, performance and writing. Syms’s work has been featured in solo exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago and Tate Modern, amongst others. She has received numerous awards, including the Creative Capital Award, the Herb Alpert Award in the Arts, the United States Artists Fellowship, the Tiffany Foundation Award and the Future Fields Art Prize. In addition, she is part of the band Aunt Sister, hosts “Double Penetration,” a monthly show on NTS Radio, and is the founder of Dominica Publishing.
https://www.martinesy.ms/

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