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.

When I come in the morning, it usually takes me a while circling.

Yeah, cleaning up a little bit and doing some thing,

slowly nestling to the point where I can actually remember where I am in a painting,

or even realize a new point of entry, so that I can get back into the making of the picture.

Sometimes it can take days to find, to know what to do next.

But the last thing to that, spray it again, but with a little matte media so it doesn't bleed.

But luckily with the number of paintings happening, I can kind of move between one and another.

But the work, to make the work, it's being in here everyday.

And some days, you'll have a great great day and work for the entire day, and make headway,

and have realizations and leave in the best place because you had this intense engagement.

Then other days, I just can't seem to find that connection. I think, that's part of the work, just being in here,

just looking at the work for a long time, and really realizing the painting.

[inaudible]