Martine Syms
Fashion Neurosis with Bella Freud
Martine Syms, multidisciplinary artist and conceptual entrepreneur, discusses her fashion choices, artistic identity, and creative process i
Key takeaways
- Syms coined 'conceptual entrepreneur' at age 19 to describe her role as an organizer and instigator rather than just a maker.
- Her art often explores avatars, shadow selves, and identity through multiple mediums including film, publishing, and performance.
Main topics
- Artistic identity and conceptual entrepreneurship
- Fashion as performance and personal narrative
Notable quotes
'I was like, okay, well, that was his definition for conceptual art. So I thought, okay, I'm going to make this space or this project that would be a machine that makes art.'
Conclusion
Martine Syms reveals how her life, from childhood to artistic practice
Transcript preview
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You can watch by searching for Happy Hour with Ina on YouTube or listen wherever you get your podcasts. Don't we all need to have more fun? Speaker 6 (1:23) Welcome to Fashion Neurosis, Martine Sims. Thank you. Happy to be Speaker 2 (1:29) here. Speaker 6 (1:30) Can Speaker 2 (1:31) you tell me what you're wearing today and why you chose these particular clothes? I'm wearing a necklace by Madea. Speaker 3 (1:40) My shirt is Sarah Aphrodite. And I've kind of been... I go through phases of Speaker 1 (1:47) wearing the same clothes a lot, and this shirt has been one of the things I've been wearing all the time. My skirt is from Prada. Speaker 3 (1:55) I wanted to wear a mini skirt to accentuate my legs. And my boots are Margiela. And they were on a shoot I did with Haley Wallens. She had these shoes. And I was like, oh, my God, these are perfect. I have to find them. So they became like a bit of a hunt for me. And then I found them. I love them. They're so comfortable. Speaker 7 (2:21) Yeah. I like the Speaker 3 (2:22) perfect boot. Speaker 7 (2:23) I might have to go on a hunt for those boots. I've always wanted to meet Hayley. Well, how do you say her name? Hayley Wallens. Speaker 2 (2:33) Yeah. Speaker 7 (2:34) She's such a brilliant stylist. She is. So Speaker 2 (2:37) good. She's a genius. Yeah. I love her. Speaker 1 (2:42) How Speaker 2 (2:42) about your underwear? Speaker 1 (2:44) My underwear are from Intimacy. I don't know where the bra, my mom actually gave me this bra. Really? I don't Speaker 3 (2:52) know where, I think she bought it, there's a place that was in Monrovia, California called Wizard of Bras. That's so good. First it was in Pasadena and they went out of business, but that was like where I got my first bra. So I think she bought all this stuff when they went out of business and this is one of the ones she got for me. Speaker 7 (3:12) That's really cool. And Speaker 2 (3:13) then Speaker 7 (3:13) I'm wearing, Speaker 3 (3:14) you can't see them, but red intimacy underwear. Speaker 2 (3:20) And the matching nail with Speaker 7 (3:22) the bra. Oh, yeah. Sorry, sorry. Speaker 1 (3:24) My friend Johanna was like, I never do a red, actually. This is maybe the first time in my life. Really? Speaker 3 (3:30) But Speaker 1 (3:31) my Speaker 3 (3:32) friend Johanna was like, it's a power color and you need to be cunty for this opening. Yes. So go red. So I did it. She gave me like some Speaker 2 (3:42) color choices. It's feeling good. It's feeling good. It's very refined. I love the Speaker 6 (3:49) arrangement of where one Speaker 7 (3:52) color connects with another. It's a sophisticated, unexpected combination. Yeah. Speaker 3 (4:03) And the red is kind of like a motif in one of the pieces that will be in my show. Speaker 2 (4:10) So I was like, yeah, I'm going to flow with the red. Speaker 2 (4:15) Because you're an artist who Speaker 6 (4:17) works in multiple mediums, publishing, photography, video, installation and performance. And you had a solo show at MoMA when you were 30. And your feature film, The African Desperate, is showing on MUBI. And you made a sitcom called She Mad. You must be used to questions about yourself and your identity. And you describe yourself as a conceptual... entrepreneur. I wondered what does that mean and how does that help us to understand your work? Speaker 1 (4:53) Yes, the conceptual entrepreneur was a phrase that I came up with when I was 19. I graduated from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and I opened a kind of project space Speaker 3 (5:09) shop that was called Golden Age. And when I was leaving Art Institute, at the time, the school was very, like, painting heavy. Speaker 3 (5:23) focused. That was kind of the main department. So I left kind of feeling like I wasn't necessarily an artist, but I was very good at organizing things and writing. So I opened like a gallery space and I still thought of it sort of as a creative practice. So I came up with that term inspired by Sol LeWitt, who had a quote that was something like, He makes the machine that makes the art. So I was kind of like, okay, well, that was his definition for conceptual art. So I thought, okay, I'm going to make this space or this project that would be a machine that makes art. But I've gone Speaker 1 (6:12) in and out of it. I used to hate it. There's a long time where I was like, oh, God, I try to get it off my like Wikipedia, like my search results. And I we were doing press for African Desperate, like the publicist. I was like my number one goal, get rid of conceptual entrepreneur. But I've kind of accepted it at this point. It's like. I do understand what I was thinking. Yeah. Speaker 6 (6:39) Because at that moment, did you think you may not be a maker, that you may be a, you know, an instigator? Speaker 1 (6:48) Yeah, I thought of Speaker 3 (6:50) myself more maybe going down like arts admin. Speaker 2 (6:54) I Speaker 3 (6:55) was applying to business schools, which was really... Speaker 3 (7:01) Thank Speaker 1 (7:01) God I didn't get it anywhere. I went to visit Stanford at one point and I was like bored out of my fucking mind in the seminar. I was like, I think you like economics, not business. But yeah, I was like, maybe I'll be more like a curator or like I worked at a gallery at the time. So I was thinking like, yeah. Speaker 3 (7:28) But everyone who would come in the shop would always be like, so is this your art project? And I was like, no, it's a business. But it Speaker 2 (7:37) was an Speaker 3 (7:38) art project. Speaker 2 (7:38) And Speaker 3 (7:39) it took Speaker 7 (7:40) me a while to realize that. It's great that they saw that and kept reminding you to be an artist and not a business person. Speaker 6 (7:49) You Speaker 7 (7:49) were raised going to church, but you said that you hated it and preferred mythology. And my school was really big on mythology. And I wondered, did you have a favorite god and what Speaker 6 (8:02) story you thought about the most? And also, yesterday I heard this story that I've never heard from Greek mythology that Zeus originally created humans with four arms and four legs and a head. with two faces, but fearing the power, he split them apart, condemning them to spend the rest of their lives searching for their other half. Speaker 3 (8:29) It Speaker 6 (8:30) felt like looking at your... your art there was some sort of I Speaker 7 (8:38) could imagine that somehow in in Speaker 6 (8:40) your repertoire have you ever heard of that story I've Speaker 1 (8:44) only heard the second part where you're looking for your other half but Speaker 6 (8:48) I Speaker 1 (8:49) didn't realize there was like a Speaker 1 (8:52) four-armed double-faced Speaker 3 (8:54) creature. But I think about that a lot, I guess, in terms of like in my artwork, there's a lot of avatars of myself or sort of like proxies or in things I write like... shadow selves I'm very interested in sin yes my favorite topic uh I've Speaker 1 (9:20) kind of decided the book of Job has become my favorite story and what is that Speaker 7 (9:27) story in a nutshell it's Speaker 3 (9:29) basically Job is a good Christian he has a beautiful family with like Four daughters and four sons and cattle and land and a beautiful wife. And he's wealthy and he fears God. And then Satan asked God, how do you know Job really believes in you? Because his life is so good. And God is like, I don't know. He's one of my faves. And then. The devil's like, well, can I kind of fuck with him and see if he really believes? And then God says, yes, just don't kill him. So the devil kills his kids, all his cattle, his wife, and leaves him kind of with all these sores like he's a leper. And then three of his friends come to visit him, friends in quotes. And they're kind of like, you had to have done something wrong. God doesn't just like. pick on people. And Job's like, I didn't, I've kept my side of the street clean. And basically he kind of like, there's seven days of silence before his three friends talk. And then they each think he's done something wrong. Maybe he didn't know what he did wrong, but he's done something. And then in the end, God talks as this like voice from the whirlwind that's basically about. Speaker 3 (11:04) How Job's kind of just a human and can't compete with God and how dare he question his actions. And it's actually such an insane poem. There's a translation by an author, Stephen Mitchell, that I've really been enjoying. But I was really interested in the devil always. I would have nightmares about the devil when I was growing up. And I remember, like when I was a kid. And one I remember really vividly, the devil was saying this whole speech to me and he used the word sophisticated, but I didn't know that word. And then I remember waking up and kind of trying to like look it up and being like, how could I know this word I don't actually know? So yeah, and I think about sort of like the idea of original sin as just being what we call trauma now. Speaker 3 (12:01) But it can only exist if you have one god. But if you have multiple gods, it's just their whims. So that's, I think, what I like about the myths. Speaker 6 (12:12) Right, yeah. They're so unreliable that makes them seem less. I suppose if I think about all the Greek gods. You just have to go with their characters rather than thinking everything's because you've done something wrong. Speaker 1 (12:33) Yeah. Yeah, they just could be jealous. Yeah. Or could be lustful or angry. Speaker 3 (12:44) You know, they're just having fun. Yeah. Or subject to their whims. Yeah. But I like that. I kind of like mythologizing, like, people or mundane things or thinking about. Speaker 3 (12:59) moments of pop culture that can feel almost like mythological, like being in your own myth. Speaker 6 (13:10) Is that something that, how do you get the spark to generate that? Do you sort of see something or feel something and then build a little myth around it? Speaker 3 (13:24) Hmm, how do I get the spark? I, well, I have a lot of like, what feels like paranormal Speaker 1 (13:34) things that happen to me. Really? So I do feel like it's just always present. Is it a Speaker 7 (13:44) recurring paranormal? Yeah, Speaker 1 (13:46) it's a recurring way of Speaker 3 (13:50) living where I'm encountering sort of like beings and Speaker 1 (13:57) magic and... Speaker 1 (14:02) yeah, mythological creatures in my day to day. Or that's how I think about it. Speaker 7 (14:07) Yeah. Because you made a lot of your own clothes when you were a Speaker 6 (14:12) child. And I was wondering, is there something that you made again and again? Or were you looking, were you experimenting with the clothing more? And were you looking to shape your identity with the clothes you were making? Speaker 3 (14:27) Yeah, I was always very picky about what I wore and sort of like territorial, wanting to be the only person wearing it. Like once when I was a kid, I had this bathing suit I was really into. And then my mom had told our neighbor where we got it. And so she was wearing it the next time we were going to go swimming. And I like lost my mind. And I Speaker 1 (14:59) was like yelling at her to take it off. And then as I was angry with her, I realized that my mom must have been the person to tell them. And then I was like really felt betrayed by her. And I was kind of like, how dare you? Even though it was probably at like TJ Maxx or something, but I was like, how dare you reveal where we got this? And yeah, I liked, there's kind of in Speaker 3 (15:29) LA like a area called the Alley. It's kind of similar to like Canal Street in New York Speaker 1 (15:36) where Speaker 3 (15:36) you can find bootlegs, but also like dead stock and like. I liked shopping there and I liked shopping at thrift stores really early. I sort of was like a little kid dressed like Gen X, like having like a mechanic shirt on or like old Boy Scout shirts, I remember. One time when I was in middle school, someone bought a Boy Scout shirt off me on the bus because they said it was like a rare one. Speaker 3 (16:08) Yeah, when I started sewing, it was mostly to make dolls. I was really into dolls and miniatures. And I Speaker 1 (16:17) had an American Girl doll. I had an Addie. But I didn't like to dress her in the slave clothes. Speaker 1 (16:25) So I would make, I would buy the other, Molly was like the post-war, most contemporary one. So I'd buy like Molly's stuff and dress her in it. And then Speaker 3 (16:37) I started sewing. And then, yeah, I just started altering my clothes. So it was like nobody else was wearing them. And kind of like middle school, high school, I started to like screen print. slogans on them, which I guess is something I still do. But one I had for a long time was this hoodie that said, like, you are not a Speaker 1 (17:02) machine. That's really good. Which people would always be very curious about. You're not a machine. I could see them Speaker 3 (17:12) reading it. Yeah, I just wanted to have my own look, I think, from an early age. Speaker 7 (17:21) Because was there something that you longed for as a child that you thought would sort of complete you? Speaker 1 (17:32) I longed to be an adult. Yeah, I wasn't really into childhood. You know, I mean, it wasn't bad, Speaker 3 (17:42) but I always wanted to have money and drive. Speaker 3 (17:48) And like, yeah, I just wanted a kind of independence. I would be those kind of kids who are like trailing way behind their family at the mall Speaker 1 (18:00) or something or movie theaters, like pretending they're there alone. Yeah. Even though clearly they're not because they're a child. But I liked the Speaker 3 (18:09) feeling of that. Yeah. I kind of wanted my own life. Yeah. Speaker 2 (18:17) Yeah. Speaker 7 (18:19) Because some of the artists that you cite as early influences are John Waters and Diane Arbus and William Eggleston. And I wondered why you Speaker 6 (18:29) thought or you think that Diane Arbus and William Eggleston still influence young people after all this time. Do you think it's because they show ordinary and enormous suffering without any self-pity? Speaker 1 (18:48) Yeah. Speaker 3 (18:49) I mean, I think also to your point about mythology, I think with Arbus, she did create these kind of characters through... people she was encountering every day in kind of mundane context. But the way she composed them, probably also the way she spoke with them to figure out the shooting. I remember, yeah, seeing a really early show of hers that really stuck with me. And Eggleston, same thing. I think it was The Color. The color was so specific. Not that I would have been able to say that when I saw it, but I can definitely look back and think his palette and his sort of world building was a lot to do with his specific color choices. And then also thinking if he's like developing those photos, those are like a physical thing he's doing. Speaker 6 (19:56) Yeah. Speaker 3 (19:57) And. Speaker 3 (20:00) The other, John Waters, I just was like, I mean, I love him. I still love him. I Speaker 7 (20:08) worship him. Speaker 3 (20:09) Yeah, he's so fun and funny. And I think, like, I always had this dark sense of humor, like a real gallows humor. And, you know, my dad would be like, I had a bad attitude. Speaker 1 (20:26) I mean, I do have a bad attitude, I guess. But John Waters seemed to, like, exemplify that. And also it was, Speaker 3 (20:35) like, I love the idea of just, like, making stuff with your friends. That was inspiring to me. So I, like, from watching his films, would start to do that with my friends. Just gather everybody and try