Julie Mehretu: Workday | Art21 "Exclusive"

Episode #092: Filmed in her Berlin studio, Julie Mehretu discusses the ups and downs of her daily studio practice. Mehretu is shown working on the painting "Middle Grey" (2007-2009), one work in a suite of seven paintings commissioned by the Deutsche Guggenheim as part of the exhibition "Julie Mehretu: Grey Area."

Mehretu's paintings and drawings refer to elements of mapping and architecture, achieving a calligraphic complexity that resembles turbulent atmospheres and dense social networks. Architectural renderings and aerial views of urban grids enter the work as fragments, losing their real-world specificity and challenging narrow geographic and cultural readings. The paintings' wax-like surfaces—built up over weeks and months in thin translucent layers—have a luminous warmth and spatial depth, with formal qualities of light and space made all the more complex by Mehretu's delicate depictions of fire, explosions, and perspectives in both two and three dimensions. Her works engage the history of nonobjective art—from Constructivism to Futurism—posing contemporary questions about the relationship between utopian impulses and abstraction.

Learn more about Julie Mehretu: http://www.art21.org/artists/julie-mehretu

VIDEO | Producer: Wesley Miller & Nick Ravich. Interview: Susan Sollins. Camera: Ian Serfontein. Sound: Paul Stadden. Editor: Lizzie Donahue & Paulo Padilha. Artwork Courtesy: Julie Mehretu.

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• art
• artist
• contemporary
• visual
• julie mehretu
• painting
• guggenheim
• studio
• berlin

[Streamline09]

Tremendous talent! Thanks.

[jdmosaics]

love the chair..always a must!!

[Bob8199]

I love her hair so much. It's so damn sexy.

[Ecosse57]

i always enjoy hearing about other artists process. encouraging to know i'm not the only one who just stares at their work and contemplates.

[acangalaya]

WONDERFUL WORK!!!!!!!!!!!

[visualguerillaFILMs]

awesome works!

[willberain]

like her work very much!

[yoramli3]

Very interesting-- I love it !! Yoram

[patrickfaithart]

i like the almost folding i see, on the close ups that are in the middle of this video.

[ammusi]

nice work!