The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts

Dear Mazie

Institution
Institute of Contemporary Art at Virginia Commonwealth University
Grant Cycle
Spring 2023
Amount
$60,000
Type of Grant
Exhibition Support
Website
icavcu.org/exhibitions/dear-mazie ↗
Archive wall, Dear Mazie, installation view, ICA at VCU, 2024. (photograph by David Hale)
Lukaza Branfman-Verissimo, Together, 2024, house paint, installation view, Dear Mazie,; ICA at VCU, 2024. (artwork © Lukaza Branfman-Verissimo; photograph by David Hale)
Amaza Lee Meredith, Azurest North, date unknown. (Amaza Lee Meredith Papers, Virginia State University, Special Collections and Archives.)
Re-created Azurest South carport, Dear Mazie,; installation view, ICA at VCU, 2024. (photograph by David Hale).
Tschabalala Self, Heroine inspired by Amaza Lee Meredith, 2024, 3D printed PLA, oil primer, oil paint, acrylic paint, custom rug, and steel stand, installation view, Dear Mazie,; ICA at VCU, 2024. (artwork © Tschabalala Self; photograph by David Hale).
The Black School (Shani Peters and Joseph Cuillier), Roses for Black Builders, 2024, curtain, ephemera, books, and furniture, installation view, Dear Mazie,; ICA at VCU, 2024. (artwork © Shani Peters and Joseph Cuillier; photograph by David Hale).
Amaza Lee Meredith, date unknown. (Amaza Lee Meredith Papers, Virginia State University, Special Collections and Archives.).
Dear Mazie,; installation view, ICA at VCU, 2024. (photograph by David Hale).
Cauleen Smith, I Need To Speak About Living Room (After June Jordan), 2024, floor-to-ceiling projections, two-channel, landscape video / footage captured in Sag Harbor (16mm), two live CCTV feeds, custom wood table, velvet, 22-inch Hughes wave machine, installation view, Dear Mazie,; ICA at VCU, 2024. (artwork © Cauleen Smith; photograph by David Hale).
Detail of neon sign, Dear Mazie,; ICA at VCU, 2024. (photograph by David Hale)

Dear Mazie, is a group exhibition inspired by the life and work of Amaza Lee Meredith (1895–1984), the trailblazing artist and educator who became the first known Black queer woman to practice as an architect in the United States. Curator Amber Esseiva has commissioned 11 contemporary artists, designers, and architects to create responses to Meredith’s multifaceted legacy.

Honoring Meredith’s prodigious and passionate letter-writing (as evidenced by the hundreds of missives Esseiva found in her 5,000-piece archive), the curator has invited the participating artists to consider the epistolary form as a conceptual framework for their commissions. The new commissions in the exhibition—produced in a wide range of media (sculpture, video, painting, installation, and performance)—along with programs and a publication, will function as a response to Meredith’s legacy, a note to the past from the present.

“Our granting program recognizes the equal importance of small, community-oriented spaces, major museums, and everything in between. Together, and with the foundation’s support, they work to collectively amplify the voices and visions of artists, which deepens and diversifies the national cultural discourse.”

Joel Wachs, President