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Lot Essay
With its kinetic explosion of line, color and form, the present Untitled work on paper from 2006 is a mesmerizing example of Julie Mehretu’s virtuosic practice. Bold geometric forms and fine linear patterns combine and collide, producing a kaleidoscopic optical effect that draws the viewer into its unchartered depths. Evocative of atlas illustrations, weather maps and ordinance survey contours, Mehretu’s hypnotic interplay of symbols and graphics confronts the viewer like a contemporary hieroglyphic inscription, ruptured and fragmented across the surface of the present sheet.
Born in Ethiopia, raised in Michigan, educated in Senegal and Rhode Island, and now based between New York and Berlin, Mehretu conceives her works in globalized terms, taking cartography, architecture and urban geography as launchpads for her unique, cataclysmic vocabulary. Building upon studies of military maps, NFL game plans, airport diagrams and architectural blueprints too, Mehretu’s interest in the constructed world is tied to a concern with the power structures that have determined our development since the dawn of civilization. The individual graphic marks that efface the diagrammatic backdrops of her works are imbued with identity and active potential, conceived as characters in overriding narratives of rebellion and uprising. “I charted, analyzed, and mapped their experience and development: their cities, their suburbs, their conflicts, and their wars,” claims Mehretu (J. Mehretu, quoted in L. Firstenberg, ‘Painting Platform in NY’, Flash Art, Vol. 35 No. 227, November-December 2002, p. 70).
Born in Ethiopia, raised in Michigan, educated in Senegal and Rhode Island, and now based between New York and Berlin, Mehretu conceives her works in globalized terms, taking cartography, architecture and urban geography as launchpads for her unique, cataclysmic vocabulary. Building upon studies of military maps, NFL game plans, airport diagrams and architectural blueprints too, Mehretu’s interest in the constructed world is tied to a concern with the power structures that have determined our development since the dawn of civilization. The individual graphic marks that efface the diagrammatic backdrops of her works are imbued with identity and active potential, conceived as characters in overriding narratives of rebellion and uprising. “I charted, analyzed, and mapped their experience and development: their cities, their suburbs, their conflicts, and their wars,” claims Mehretu (J. Mehretu, quoted in L. Firstenberg, ‘Painting Platform in NY’, Flash Art, Vol. 35 No. 227, November-December 2002, p. 70).