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[Julie Mehretu: Politicized Landscapes]

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There is no such thing as just "landscape".

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The actual landscape is politicized through

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the events that take place on it.

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And I don't think it's possible for me,[br]in general,

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to ever think about the American landscape

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without thinking about the colonial history--

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and the colonial violence--[br]of that narrative.

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The abolitionist movement.

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The Civil War.

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The move towards emancipation.

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All of these social dynamics that are[br]part of that narrative,

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we don't really talk about in regards to[br]American landscape paintings.

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And so, what does it mean to paint a landscape

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and try and be an artist[br]in this political moment?

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The color in these paintings[br]really came out of

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blurred photographs that were[br]embedded inside of the underpaintings.

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The sirens and the flames of race riots

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was a way to embed the paintings with DNA

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so that I could respond from a deeper place.

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--I'm going to go upstairs and take a look.

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--Yeah, I'm excited!

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[LAUGHS]

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Marian Goodman contacted me,

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telling me that SFMOMA was interested[br]in doing this commission

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before the new museum opened.

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I went several times to San Francisco[br]to visit the museum.

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I was there, staring at this[br]very cavernous, open space--

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at these two walls.

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And I started to think about[br]the national parks

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and the representations of[br]American landscape painting.

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And, specifically, when I came back,

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I kept thinking about the[br]Hudson River Valley School painters,

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like Edwin Church,

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Thomas Cole,[br]Bierstadt--

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because they really encapsulate that idea[br]of going westward.

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I started to layer the blurred color images[br]into these historic landscape paintings.

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Just prior to emancipation,

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Native Americans of the Sierras[br]and the western frontiers were

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completely annihilated by this [br]expansionist project.

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What was interesting was that aspect of

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both annihilation and then[br]preservation shortly after

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can exist on the same geographic landscape.

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San Francisco then, as a site,

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became important because that was[br]this destiny of going out west.

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[Jason Moran, composer and pianist]

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--[MEHRETU] How are you doing?

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Jason Moran wrote me after seeing some paintings

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and he talked about them as a score.

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And I was super interested in that.

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And so we started working together here

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in a very, very loose and open way.

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It's kind of an amazing thing to paint[br]in a church.

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Everything kind of reverberates[br]back into here,

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energy-wise--[br]consciousness-wise--

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and everything that has taken place[br]this year in my personal life,

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with my children,[br]with what has happened politically.

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All of that is immersed in these paintings.

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[Electric piano plays]

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All of these brutal killings of Black people[br]in this country--

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and the Black body.

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The Trump-Hillary dynamic,

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it was disgusting to witness.

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There was something in that language[br]that's visceral.

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When a person speaks so horrifically towards[br]another being,

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that's deeply wrenching.

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The discomfort of being a person[br]living and working in the United States

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is a place that, I think, these paintings[br]were being made from.

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[Electric piano plays]

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[JASON MORAN] Every room defines one tone,

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and it's like the room tone.

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It's the tone that makes it resonate.

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And I started to find some of that[br]in the note A-flat.

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I started to build around that,

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and then, every once in a while,

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look up and see where Julie was in her work.

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Then slowly, I started to look at[br]my sheet of paper

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not as a place that had a start and a finish,

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but that all of it could be composed on[br]different moments.

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--I made a little section where[br]you were taking stuff away.

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[LAUGHS]

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--I made you a little part that's like,[br]"I'm taking this away."

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[MEHRETU LAUGHS]

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[MORAN] America is a country still in the[br]adolescent stage.

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It doesn't know how to deal with its emotions.

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[LAUGHS]

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It doesn't know how to deal with its history.

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It doesn't want to dig in the ground to know[br]what artifacts are under it.

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And so, jazz, I always say,[br]has been that form of music

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that's been the model of letting people[br]know what's happening.

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It's always been like that.

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[Electric piano plays]

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And so we recorded the music because

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we should document the moment

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and also share the moment, too.

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[MEHRETU] I really try to think about[br]painting in terms of

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the construction or making of an image.

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Dealing with things that[br]we don't have proper language for.

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I kind of start to think of them as[br]these visual neologisms.

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The neologism is there to address[br]when language isn't enough.

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Through repetition of the mark,

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there's this desire of trying[br]to invent something.

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At a certain point, I wanted to bring[br]elements of the underpainting to the surface,

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so that it further complicated, spatially,[br]how you were seeing these.

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When you're looking at these paintings,[br]they're not graspable.

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There are moments where they reference[br]Renaissance Ascension painting,

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and then other moments that feel digitized.

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At least for me,[br]they're not something I feel like

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I can give any kind of articulation[br]of what's happening fully.

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[Jazz music plays]

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I love California.

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There's this grandeur to the coast[br]and the way the coast reaches the ocean.

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When you're driving through the Bay Area,[br]it's just majestic.

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[San Francisco Museum of Modern Art]

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I feel like I have a hundred other paintings[br]I want to make,

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because I've learned so much in making these.

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I'm not going to try and take a break[br]or stop working.

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There's a lot of creative momentum[br]in finishing these paintings.

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[Clapping and cheering]

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I have a lot of ideas that I want to investigate

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and I'm excited about that.