Mavis Pusey: Mobile Images @ ICA Philadelphia - Retrospective Exhibition

Mavis Pusey: Mobile Images

Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia

Through December 7, 2025

Mavis Pusey with her work Within Manhattan 

Image courtesy of Studio Museum in Harlem

For the first time, the life and work of Jamaica-born artist MAVIS PUSEY (1928-2019) is fully explored in a major museum survey. Through December 7, 2025, ICA Philadelphia presents Mavis Pusey: Mobile Images, an extensive retrospective spanning the prolific artist’s 50-year career. Featuring more than 60 works – including paintings, drawings, and prints – as well as archival materials, the exhibition explores the influences that led Pusey to develop her unique visual language through experimentation with geometric abstraction. Tracing her journey from Jamaica to New York, London, Paris, Philadelphia, and Virginia, Mobile Images demonstrates the evolution of Pusey’s work throughout her life, and offers a long-overdue reexamination of her impact on American abstraction and beyond.

Mavis Pusey: Mobile Images was curated by Hallie Ringle, Interim Director and Daniel and Brett Sundheim Chief Curator of the ICA Philadelphia, with Kiki Teshome, Curatorial Assistant at the Studio Museum in Harlem, where it will travel in Spring 2027. The exhibition is supported by extensive research and preservation initiatives conducted in partnership with the Getty Research Institute and Getty Conservation Institute with significant support from the Mellon Foundation. ICA hosted a two-day symposium, bringing together scholars, artists, community leaders, and the public to discuss Pusey’s legacy and the continued relevance of her work today. 

“It has been a monumental and collaborative process to bring this project to fruition. Culminating over a decade of partnership, working initially with the artist herself and collaborating alongside Thelma Golden and the Studio Museum, the exhibition marks the first time that Pusey’s work will be on view publicly in a comprehensive manner,” remarks Hallie Ringle. “Our goal is to enable audiences to appreciate the breadth and evolution of Pusey’s work within a deeply researched framework, and for the public, scholars, and artists alike to be able to draw connections between her work and key art historical narratives and contemporary practices.”

While Pusey’s dedication to geometric abstraction earned her recognition from key curatorial voices during her lifetime, like Howardina Pindell, her work remains largely overlooked. Born and raised in Retreat, Jamaica, she created rich abstract paintings and works on paper inspired by her wide-ranging interests in fashion, print-making, and the urban environment of cities she lived in throughout her life. Mavis Pusey studied at the Art Students League under Will Barnet (1961–1965) and, later, worked at Robert Blackburn’s Printmaking Workshop (1969–1972), which was frequented by significant figures such as Emma Amos, Jacob Lawrence, Romare Bearden, and Melvin Edwards, among others. A passionate educator, she taught for some time at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia as she continued to develop her own studio work.

Mavis Pusey resisted pressures to create figurative, overtly socio-political work and remained committed to working in abstraction, retaining a focused thematic vision of her work throughout her career. However, discriminatory hiring practices that barred her from tenured teaching positions, and a late-in-life illness further contributed to the fragmentation and near-loss of her artistic archive. Starting in 2015, Hallie Ringle, who at the time served as Assistant Curator at the Studio Museum, worked closely with the artist; Thelma Golden, Ford Foundation Director and Chief Curator of the Studio Museum; and the team at the Studio Museum to painstakingly reassemble her body of work before her death in 2019, including the acquisition of a large portion of Pusey’s work for the Studio Museum’s collection. With her appointment at ICA, Hallie Ringle continued to advance her research, prompting a close collaboration between ICA and the Studio Museum on comprehensive conservation and research initiatives to preserve the artist’s legacy.

Thelma Golden said, “Mavis Pusey was a truly pioneering artist of the abstract movement who should be rightfully recognized for her formal precision and boundless curiosity. My immense gratitude goes to Hallie Ringle for her unwavering care and research throughout this process and to the entire team at ICA Philadelphia and the Studio Museum, especially Kiki Teshome, for their dedication and attention over the course of this exhibition’s planning.”

Mavis Pusey 

Paris, Mars – Juin, 1968 

Image courtesy of the Estate of Mavis Pusey

Unfolding across ICA’s first and second floors, Mavis Pusey: Mobile Images is organized in thematic sections that explore important motifs in her work, including the body, music, and demolition/construction. The exhibition will debut seven newly discovered paintings, on view for the first time alongside key works moving through each period of Pusey’s creative trajectory. Although some of Pusey’s works are over 50 years old, the themes addressed connect deeply to contemporary life. Her “Broken Construction” series (1960s–1990s) explores ideas of destruction and renewal as a metaphor for societal change. Her compositions, which show bricks and boards falling to the ground, are not dystopian realities but rather hopeful imaginings of the future. Another highlight are Pusey’s works created in reaction to the U.S. Civil Rights Movement and student protests in Paris during the 1960s. After witnessing the student protests in Paris, Pusey created several prints inspired by the movement, including Paris, Mars - Juin (1968) that shows the city in flames. Eric (1968), named after a friend, was inspired by an encounter she had with the French police: the periphery of the print is minimalist in form and grows increasingly chaotic towards the center, representing the emotional turmoil Eric felt under his cool demeanor. These and other works are contextualized by the inclusion of photographs, notes, and ephemera from Pusey’s lifetime, which offer historical and personal insight into the artist’s boundary-pushing body of work.

Conservation: Much of Pusey's work has needed conservation, and experts across the country have been working to restore her paintings and prints. As part of this initiative, ICA Philadelphia and the Studio Museum are working collaboratively with the Getty Research Institute and the Getty Conservation Institute to jointly conduct a thorough study of Pusey’s work. The study includes focused technical analysis of the artist materials and conserving her works on paper. All of Getty’s findings was published so that the technical aspects of Pusey’s practice is made broadly accessible to the public.

Exhibition Publication: The exhibition is accompanied by a comprehensive publication documenting Pusey’s creative practice. Designed by Miko McGinty, the catalog includes forewords by Thelma Golden and Hallie Ringle, an introduction by Ringle, guest essays, a roundtable on experimental music and its impact on Pusey’s work, and an archive essay by Kiki Teshome. The publication is co-published by the Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania, and the Studio Museum in Harlem.

ICA PHILADELPHIA - UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA

118 South 36th Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104

icaphila.org

Mavis Pusey: Mobile Images 

Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia, July 12 - December 7, 2025

Energy/Experimentation: Black Artists and Abstraction 1964 - 1980 at the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York

Energy/Experimentation

Black Artists and Abstraction 1964 - 1980

Studio Museum in Harlem, New York

April 5 - July 2, 2006 

The Studio Museum in Harlem proudly presents Energy/Experimentation: Black Artists and Abstraction 1964-1980, comprised of 40 works by 15 leading artists of the era. Focusing on a core group who dedicated themselves to experimentation with structure and materials, this exhibition presents a range of hybrid objects, paintings and sculptures formed from the unique, non-objective visual languages of abstraction. Organized by guest-curator Kellie Jones, Assistant Professor in the Departments of History of Art and African American Studies at Yale University, Energy/Experimentation provides a broad historical context for Black abstract artists and their work.

Artists in the exhibition: Frank Bowling, Barbara Chase-Riboud , Ed Clark, Melvin Edwards, Fred Eversley, Sam Gilliam, Daniel LaRue Johnson, Tom Lloyd, Al Loving, Joe Overstreet, Howardena Pindell, Haywood Bill Rivers, Alma Thomas, Jack Whitten, William T. Williams 

Ranging from William T. Williams’ complex polyrhythms and geometric paintings to Alma Thomas’ vivid canvases, works in the exhibition employ inventive explorations of color, subject and texture. Engaged with trends of postpainterly abstraction and systematic painting, they are frontal, holistic and utilize primary forms. At once emotional, optical and vibrant, Howardena Pindell’s early stained drawings and later confetti-laden canvases and Al Loving’s dyed canvases pose questions about the nature of surface. Such investigations move into three dimensions with Tom Lloyd’s vibrant, electronic light pieces, which were included in the Studio Museum’s first show, Electronic Refractions II. Fred Eversley’s cool forms in plastic resin, and Barbara Chase-Riboud’s mix of bronze and silk engage space and texture. 

While more militant practitioners and institutions felt that figuration was a better way to fight the derogatory imagery that centered on people of African descent, abstract artists used spatial and pictorial energy, as well as themes and titles, to make the social ferment of the time present in their work. These artists also kept their projects socially involved by exploring the public aspects of exhibition, and crafting art with the idea of encompassing the viewer, connecting them to the work’s energy, and making bodies aware of their corporeality. Energy/Experimentation illuminates the contributions made to American abstraction by a group that challenged artistic, technological and social assumptions of their era. 

A full-color catalogue, including essays by Kellie Jones, Lowery Stokes Sims, Guthrie Ramsey, and Courtney J. Martin, as well as a roundtable discussion between Kellie Jones, Lowery Stokes Sims, Melvin Edwards, William T. Williams, Julie Mehretu and Louis Cameron, accompanies the exhibition. 

STUDIO MUSEUM IN HARLEM

144 West 125th Street, New York, NY 10027

www.studiomuseum.org

African Queen - Exhibition & Artists - The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York

African Queen

The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York

January 26 - March 27, 2005

The Studio Museum in Harlem presents African Queen, an exhibition that explores both real and imagined attitudes that have come to define what constitutes the black queen. These are the thoughts that artists have espoused in their work to muse the black woman in history and in popular culture. The image of the black woman spans countless generations and diverse media, from Egyptian sculpture and European portrait painting, to Hollywood films and fashion magazines.

From diva to bodybuilder to supermodel, these images speak to desire, history and attitude that has come to define the ever evolving image of an African Queen.  With more than 50 works in various media by 30 artists, African Queen cycles through numerous images and notions of black women by contemporary artists working in painting, sculpture, photography, video and mixed media. For example Nigerian photographer J.D. ‘Okhai Ojeikere’s, Ogun Pari (2000), translates to “war is over” and depicts a hairstyle that celebrates the end of the Nigerian civil war in 1970. On the other hand, Nzingah Muhammad’s Extended Veil, a photograph of her fathers four wives sharing one same veil, symbolically representing the unity brought.  Whereas Wangechi Mutu’s collages infuse African rituals, immigrant nightmares and contemporary ‘bling.’

Charita (2001), a photograph by Dawoud Bey, is of a teenager in Chicago’s south side who strikes a pose in her leopard slippers. John Bankston’s watercolor painting, The Good Fairy Takes a Break (2004), and Mickalene Thomas’ work in mixed media, Rumor has It (2003), both present the extroverted and liberal. Lawdy Mama (1979), a painting by Barkley Hendricks represents a black woman as an icon. While Deb Willis’s photographs explore the beauty of black female bodybuilders. In contrast, the works by Iké Udé, Lyle Ashton Harris and John Bankston expand the discourse of African Queen to include drag queens and transgender.

African Queen is the first in a series of exhibitions organized by the 2005 Studio Museum in Harlem Curatorial Team, composed of Rashida Bumbray, Ali Evans, Sandra D. Jackson and Christine Y. Kim. Inspired by works from the permanent collection and including recent acquisitions, gifts and loans, African Queen reflects the exchange of ideas that live in the museum’s collective and collaborative psyche.

ARTISTS IN THE EXHIBITION

JOHN BANKSTON, Born 1968 in Benton Harbor, MI - Lives and works in San Francisco, CA

DAWOUD BEY, Born 1953 in Queens, NY - Lives and works in Chicago, IL

MARK BRADFORD, Born 1961 in Los Angeles, CA - Lives and works in Inglewood, CA

CHAKAIA BOOKER, Born 1953 in Newark, NJ - Lives and works in New York, NY

RENEE COX, Born 1960 in Colgate, Jamaica - Lives and works in Chappaqua, NY

RICO GASTON, Born 1966 in Augusta, GA - Lives and works in Brooklyn, NY

LYLE ASHTON HARRIS, Born 1965 in Bronx, NY - Lives and works in New York, NY

BARKLEY HENDRICKS, Born 1945 in Philadelphia, PA  - Lives and works in New London, CT

DEANA LAWSON, Born 1979 in Rochester, NY - Lives and works in Rochester, NY

KALUP LINZY, Born 1977 in Clermont, FL - Lives and works in Brooklyn, New York

ADIA MILLETT, Born 1975 in Los Angeles, CA - Lives and works in Brooklyn, NY

NZINGAH MUHAMMAD, Born 1976 in New York, NY - Lives and works in Brooklyn, NY

WANGECHI MUTU, Born 1972 in Nairobi, Kenya - Lives and works in Brooklyn, NY

KORI NEWKIRK, Born 1970 in Bronx, NY - Lives and works in Los Angeles, CA 

J.D. ’OKHAI OJEIKERE, Born 1930 in Ovbiomu-Emai, Nigeria - Lives and works in Lagos

NADINE ROBINSON, Born 1968 in London, England - Lives and works in Bronx, New York               TRACEY ROSE, Born 1974 in Durban, South Africa - Lives and works in Johannesburg, South Africa

RUDY SHEPHERD

MALICK SIDIBE, Born 1935 in Soloba, Mali - Lives and works in Bamako, Mali

LORNA SIMPSON, Born 1960 in Brooklyn, NY - Lives and works in Brooklyn

XAVIERA SIMMONS, Born 1974 in New York, NY - Lives and works in Brooklyn, NY

SHINIQUE SMITH, Born 1971 in Baltimore, MD - Lives and works in Brooklyn, NY

MICKALENE THOMAS, Born 1971 in Camden, New Jersey - Lives and works in Brooklyn, NY

FATIMAH TUGGAR, Born 1967 in Kaduna, Nigeria - Lives and works in New York, NY

JAMES VANDERZEE (1886-1983)

FRANCESCO VEZZOLI, Born 1971 in Brescia, Italy - Lives and works in Milan, Italy

CARRIE MAE WEEMS, Born 1953 in Portland, Oregon - Lives and works in New York, NY

KARA WALKER, Born 1969 in Stockton, CA - Lives and works in New York, NY

DEBORAH WILLIS, Born 1948 in Philadelphia, PA - Lives and works in New York, NY

IKÉ UDÉ, Born in Lagos, Nigeria - Lives and works in New York, NY and Paris, France

THE STUDIO MUSEUM IN HARLEM - SMH

144 West 125th Street, New York, NY 10027

www.studiomuseum.org

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