JULIE MEHRETU: at the edge

Julie Mehretu, a powerhouse in the contemporary art world, is known for creating captivating, abstract works that are at once monumental in size and intimate in detail. In a practice that spans painting, printmaking, and drawing, Mehretu employs a meticulous creative process that evolves through the layering of impressions: gestural marks, architectural plans, timelines, and truths of global politics build to create vast and energetic visual landscapes.

Born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and educated in the United States, where she lives and works today, Mehretu’s perspective has been shaped by her lived experience and a persistent engagement and interest in the world around her. Mehretu draws inspiration from the chaotic beauty of urban environments and the complexities of modern life, transforming these influences into dynamic compositions. Her work moves beyond visual expression to offer a journey that is social, political, historical, and personal.

Mehretu’s work has redefined abstraction in the 21st century, making her one of the most influential artists of our time. If you’re in Venice, make sure to visit Ensemble, the largest exhibition of Mehretu’s work in Europe to date, on view at Palazzo Grassi until January 6th, 2025.

hube: Art seems to reveal who we are; do you think it might be the only way for a person to truly understand themselves?

Julie Mehretu: I believe art has the incredible ability to reflect, question, and serve as a testament to the evolution of culture-both the moment we live in and the way culture changes over time. It acts as both a mirror and witness to our experiences. It offers a different kind of transformative experience, and, in that sense, it’s like something sacred.

h: In your work, the presence of time is obvious. Research, archiving, observation, or dialogue: which approach resonates with you most?

JM: I think of time as something that is not strictly linear. It’s not a simple past, present, and future, but rather a mix of all three. It’s more complicated in that way, like a zoetrope or something in which cycles repeat, memory and how memory works, inherited memory, joy, and trauma. All of these things shape our understanding of ourselves and the world. But time is also the experience of being in the present while looking to the past or projecting into the future, somehow these aspects are all folded into one another. Time is complex, and maybe that’s why exploring different directions and ideas to visually collapse these boundaries is so interesting.

h: The intricate and detailed nature of your work encourages the viewer to interpret it in various, often surprising, ways. Do you enjoy witnessing this process?

JM: I’m really interested in how all the visual information in a painting becomes an experience for viewers, and how the viewers bring their own subjective realities into the experience they have with the painting. A lot of that is informed by the time of day, the mood of the person-all these different moments.

For me, it’s really about that experience: how the painting becomes a presence for the viewer, and what kind of presence that is. I’m curious if there’s any form of interpersonal experience that happens between the painting and the viewer. I mean, that’s one of the things about painting, it’s not just a space for liberatory creative investigation or work, it’s also about the reaction it elicits and how it works with the viewer, that’s really important. Enjoy might not be the right word, but I think it’s intrinsic to what painting is.

h: Poetry easily blends reality, abstraction, fantasy, and feeling. Does such an approach resonate with your creative process?

JM: In a way, I think what you’re describing is something of an abstraction-what happens in these moments when something is being created. You’re given clues, but there’s no way to decipher them literally. There’s no grasp-able, easily decipherable information that you’re looking at. I think you’re dealing with various experiences that come from yourself and others. All of that kind of blends in, and where these things meet, they create a fuzzy, blurry experience that becomes the focus.

h: If society is unable to find the right answers for the future by looking to the past, where should we turn for guidance?

JM: We’re facing a future that’s incredibly complex and hostile, not just due to current political dynamics, but also because of the pervasive violence present everywhere. This sense of violence seems to have been a part of human existence forever. It’s overwhelmingly devastating, yet it’s also been a fundamental aspect of the human condition for a very long time. What inspires me the most is the desire to continue despite all odds, the desire to annihilate that oppression and ultimate violence. At its core, there’s a profound sense of survival-not just basic survival, but a deep insistence on existing, even if it’s through creative expression. If we look at the history of violence in the United States, such as the genocidal acts of Western expansion or the brutal realities of slavery, these were also periods that fostered new forms of creative resilience. Despite all efforts to dehumanise people, there’s a constant knowledge and insistence on one’s own humanity and being. While there’s much discussion about what it means to be human or post-human, what’s compelling is this persistent aspect of our nature. We see it and experience it daily, and in many ways, it provides context for everything else.