“Abstract, confused, uncertain.” Meet American painter Julie Mehretu who, in her recent series of Metoikos paintings, tries to reflect the state of our contemporary world.
“A lot of our assumptions will be challenged”, she says, defining the reality of most people as living in between – of “being and not being” at the same time. “I am in a state of alert, a state of alarm.”
Asked about the intensity of colour in the Metoiko series, Mehretu states: “Well, we had Trump. You had to do something.”
Julie Mehretu (b. 1970, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia) lives and works in New York City. She received a B.A. from Kalamazoo College, Michigan, studied at the University Cheikh Anta Diop, Dakar, Senegal, and received a Master’s of Fine Art with honours from The Rhode Island School of Design in 1997.
In exploring palimpsests of history, from geological time to a modern-day phenomenology of the social, Julie Mehretu’s works engage us in a dynamic visual articulation of contemporary experience, a depiction of social behaviour and the psychogeography of space. Mehretu’s work is informed by a multitude of sources, including politics, literature and music. Most recently, her paintings have incorporated photographic images from broadcast media which depict conflict, injustice, and social unrest. Mehretu’s practice in painting, drawing, and printmaking equally assert the role of art to provoke thought and reflection and express the current condition of the individual and society.
She has received many prestigious awards, including the MacArthur Fellowship in 2005 and the U.S. Department of State Medal of Arts Award in 2015 and membership to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, in 2021. Her work has been exhibited extensively in museums and biennials, including the Carnegie International (2004–05), Sydney Biennial (2006), Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (2010), dOCUMENTA (13) (2012), Sharjah Biennial (2015), Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Serralves, Porto, Portugal (2017), Kettle’s Yard, University of Cambridge, UK (2019); and the 58th International Art Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia, (2019).
In November 2019, a career survey opened of Mehretu’s work at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and afterwards travelled to The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; The High Museum, Atlanta; and The Walker Museum of Art, Minneapolis.
Julie Mehretu was interviewed by Marc-Christoph Wagner in connection with her exhibition Metoikos (in between paintings) at the gallery Carlier Gebauer in Berlin in September 2021.
Camera: Mark Nichels
Edited by Signe Boe Pedersen
Produced by Marc-Christoph Wagner
Copyright: Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, 2022
Louisiana Channel is supported by Den A.P. Møllerske Støttefond, Ny Carlsbergfondet, C.L. Davids Fond og Samling and Fritz Hansen.
#JulieMehretu #Artist #contemporaryart
Subscribe to our channel for more videos on art: https://www.youtube.com/thelouisianachannel
FOLLOW US HERE!
Website: http://channel.louisiana.dk
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LouisianaChannel
Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/louisianachannel
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/LouisianaChann
17 Comments
she's so boooooooooooorinnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnng ugh
😊😊😊😊😍😍😍😍😍🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰this is beautiful, art is so beautiful, it's a gift that just keeps on giving. This is such a Beautiful work
Really like what she says! This art is music for sure. When the words are not there to trigger the sounds/concepts in the mind then seeing as knowing becomes it's own way of listening. Goes right to the root of beauty as being.
Incredible work. It's unfortunate most of the "challenges" we are living through are largely self-inflicted, and center around both people's and leaderships lack of vision. The colors and movement are amazing.
Art should help make sense of the world and/or human nature, not obfuscate it as these….images…do.
Missing from this video is the amount of actual painting and mark-making Mehretu's assistants do on her paintings. Even more extraordinary is that there is such footage online, she seeming more director than painter.
I think it´s not. It´s a thin computer game.
picking out elements of upper-paleolithic cave art in a miasmic conflagration of tortured baby eels about to jump into a seven dimensional cube of tofu while referencing the trump administration has 'rendered' my emotional circuitry in an utterly depressed and forlorn state ~ and yet there is still 4 minutes and 29 seconds left of this glo-rious video left to behold and digest
Thought The Work Was Actually Really Ascetically Pleasing. Should Have Left The Interview Out Though And Just Showcased The Work. The Artists Comments On The Trump Era And Claiming The "Last Few Years We're Dismal" SMH. Wonder How The Artist Feels About The Biden Era… Maybe She's Just Pandering To A Certain Audience.
What A Farce…Lmao. Just Read The Video Description. Too Funny. How The Hell Do You Guys Get All This Pulled From An Interesting Looking Abstract Painting? I Love Abstract Work But When You Try And Tie "Political Views" To It You Lose People. Just Say What It Is….A Beautiful Image. Leave Out The Bullshit About Your World Views. I Know Your Trying To Add Value And Make Yourself Feel Some Type Of Way By Saying This Painting Stands For This Or That. Its Just Not True Though. Makes Out To Be Just Another Weird Trendy Artist. Nice Abstract Works Though. Look Really Nice To Be Honest.
These paintings look like graffiti art from the '80s. Like paintings by Futura 2000… This kind of style has already been made. And other artists have made better versions of this style. This is sad because her earlier paintings were groundbreaking and full of energy, these paintings just look dull.
Moving abstracts seem to have an inexplicable sense of integrity about them. Julie's work has this, and I love her explanations behind what she does.
Good job
Yes, it's impossible when you haven't got the right framework. Marxism provides the only lens to accurately view capitalism through, because Marx got it right – and it ain't pretty and capitalism has not fundamentally changed, and it's not "abstract", though certainly we are in a confusing, extended, perhaps terminal, systemic 'interregnum'. Someone hand her Kapital!
The paintings have an exciting, shifting depth which I like. Shades of Kandinsky and Miro for the digital age, echoing and heralding the collapse of the biosphere.
🤩🤩🤩
Always the best art content on Youtube! Love Louisiana Channel
Are these digital prints……….they look like prints.