Total
of 7
On
the
occasion
of
Martine
Syms'
exhibition,
this
catalog
entitled
Total
retraces
the
artistic
practice
of
Martine
Syms
since
2005,
immersing
readers
in
a
total
work
of
art
that
looks
at
the
“theater
of
the
everyday”,
the
roles
we
play
in
it,
and
the
surveillance
mechanisms
that
control
them.
The
artist's
work
br
idges
the
gap
between
the
public
and
the
private,
the
seen
and
the
unseen,
the
inside
and
the
outside.
Between
intimate
references,
historical
archives,
cultural
representations
of
Blackness,
feminist
history
and
invocations
of
spirituality,
Total
presents
itself
as
a
work
in
which
the
mechanisms
of
identity
construction
are
played
out
and
reflected.
Author
Claudia
Rankine
writes
an
academic
essay
analyzing
Martine
Syms'
body
of
work.
Artist
and
poet
Hannah
Black
composes
an
experimental
text
based
on
astro
logical
references
to
Syms'
personality.
Finally,
exhibition
curator
and
director
of
the
Lafayette
Foundation
Rebecca
Lamarche
is
in
conversation
with
the
guest
artist.