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[JULIE MEHRETU] My earlier drawings
And paintings had this maplike,

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diagrammatic element to them.

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As the work has shifted to being

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more atmospheric or painterly,

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I refrained from trying to explain what's going on in
the paintings as much because

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they're not these kind of
rational descriptions or–

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or efforts to articulate something
in that way.

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I'm not trying to spell out
a story.

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I still think you feel the
painting, and the reason you

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read the mark is also because
you also feel the mark.

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[soft whirring]

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- So the two projects that
we're doing in Berlin: one is

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a work that's about 21 feet by
85 feet long, and--one painting.

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And the other is another project
where we're doing seven

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paintings that are small
in comparison, 10x14 each.

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[airbrush hissing]

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The 21x85-foot painting will
take about a year and a half.

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It's really one painting even
though there will be either five

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sections or ten sections;

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it functions as one painting.

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The stretchers that we're using

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are not gonna be the stretchers
that we're using on-site.

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So these paintings will be taken
off of these stretchers, rolled up,

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shipped back, and then
restretched at the site.

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- Just watch out for the
column, though.

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- The reason that we're in Berlin

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is because Julie's studio
in New York can't accommodate

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something of this scale.

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This project just kind of had
to dictate where it was gonna be

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more than we were gonna dictate
where it was gonna be.

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It's epic.

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This place was three times
bigger than what we envisioned.

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So we were able to design all
the walls, do whatever we want

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to the spaces, and just have
everything that we needed and wanted.

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This is just something that you can't,
unfortunately, get in New York.

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So we just took it and
ran with it.

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- This project is crazy.

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[chuckles]

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Everything is new: the size,
the space, just working in

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a different country, trying to
get materials.

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It's just– it's crazy.

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[sprayer hissing]

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We all kind of have our own different jobs that we've kind
of developed.

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Mostly I do the surfaces.

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Julie is all for
experimentations.

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I started developing this new
surface: kind of this, like,

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acrylic-based, almost like
absorbent paper surface.

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So she can actually paint on
these surfaces almost like

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paper, but they can be
any scale.

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[MEHRETU] January of 2007, I was
working on some new paintings,

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and in that process, I had been
doing a bunch of watercolors.

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When I was working on the watercolors,

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there was this
phenomenon that was happening

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in those that I wanted to try
and bring into the painting.

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In one painting, it was just not
working.

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I kept pushing the color into

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this painting where there'd been
this intense amount of drawing

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and this intense action between
all these different marks.

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And so at one point, I just
started to sand away all the–

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all the color that came
into the work.

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And at one point when I had
finished sanding it, I turned

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around and looked at it,
and it was a finished painting.

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That– it was almost–

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That's when I called it this
poltergeist in the work.

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And it became this absence,

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this– the– the erasure itself
became the action.

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And it reminded me the caves of

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the Buddhas in Afghanistan once
the Taliban removed those

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Buddhas: that image of their absence.

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It was almost that type of
feeling to this area in this painting.

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It felt to me to kind of suggest
a moment in terms of how

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sad or pessimistic you can feel
in a political environment and–

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or kind of historical situation
that we're in globally.

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So it felt like this really,
you know, kind of hopeful

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gesture in the painting, for me.

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I'm an Ethiopian-American.

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My– you know, a big part of my
family is Ethiopian, but I've

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been in the states since I was six.

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I was raised in Michigan.

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I live in New York City,
for the most part.

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I'm in Berlin now.

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But, I mean, when I move around

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the world, I move around the
world as an American.

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Being a citizen of the United
States or of any one in the

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European Union, you are
a citizen of incredible privilege.

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I think anyone who is aware of
that, you have to have some responsibility.

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- We basically have a plan
from Julie that has these

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multi-layers of shapes and
line work and these forms that

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she's gotten from different
areas, and for us to be able

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to actually replicate that
successfully, we then have to

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take it and just say,
"All right, well, this shape,

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this shape, this shape is under
these ten shapes, which are

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under these five shapes but are
above these six shapes."

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And then layer by layer, we'll

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project and, you know, mask and
paint or airbrush or draw,

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however we can, get her original
source up onto the surface.

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So sometimes it can be a simple

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composition that we only have
to break apart into three or

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four layers, or sometimes it'll
be a detailed composition

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that we have break into
15, 20 sublayers.

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[indistinct conversation]

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[MEHRETU] For this next show, which is
for the Guggenheim, I'm making

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seven paintings that are 10 feet
by 14 feet.

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Many parts of the drawing
will also be erased.

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So the paintings will build up,
and then a big portion of them

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somehow or another will disappear.

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So then hopefully, the paintings

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will also just interact to talk
about disintegration.

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I try to start the group of
paintings with each having their

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own kind of architectural
information.

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This piece right now, it's just
different views from Google Earth,

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you know, of New York City
and Tokyo.

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Basically, it's tracing, because

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that takes so long, and a lot of
the stuff that the assistants do,

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it becomes a ground for my work.

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I'm so blessed to have such
a great team.

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This would be a nightmare if it
wasn't such a great group of people.

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The difficult part is, we have
not that much time.

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we have a year from now.

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And we have to trust the process

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and trust the intuition and
trust– and trust that hopefully

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it manifests itself, and we'll–
and that I'll be able to make

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these pictures work, I mean,
because after the initial work

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is done by everyone else,
it’s up to me to really go in

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and draw on all of them
and complete them.

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[indistinct conversations]

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The large commission has
a really specific point of

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departure in terms of what it's
conceptually trying to deal with

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if you're gonna make a picture
of that scale and embed that and

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locate that in Lower Manhattan,
which is where it's commissioned for,

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can you deal, then, with
what Lower Manhattan symbolizes?

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It's something that's been
a big part of trying to figure out

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who I am and my work,
is trying understand systems.

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What you've seen here is only
the first layer of information,

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and that first layer of
information is hopefully

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something that mimics early maps
from the early silk road

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through the evolution of the
marketplace.

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Can you actually make a picture
that in some way maps and gives

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a picture of this history of the
development of– you know,

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capitalist development,
economic system?

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Which is absurd. It's–
[chuckles]

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- Can you separate it out?
- That I can.

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- No, but if they just draw–

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Like just draw these
little sections.

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-Right.
-You know what I mean?

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You can't tell what's what, then.

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That whole–
what it does is, it just builds

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like these plateaus of space.
it creates a space.

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[machine rumbles]
-[speaks indistinctly]

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- That kind of drawing,
but I think that if you had it

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with no recognizable
buildings whatsoever--
- No.

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[JESSICA RANKIN] I think inevitably as an
artist couple, you're gonna

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impact each other and influence
each other and...

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- It's, like, about, like,
fragmented space,

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and then so much of
that is like...

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[RANKIN] I mean, we've always worked

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that way, ever since we first
started living and working

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together, eight years ago now.

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We've- -it's just a very organic process,

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and that's sort of the
way we lead our lives.

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And in New York, our studios
are in our house, so until,

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you know, recently– our son
started going to school

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recently, but he was in and out
of our studio all day too.

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And it's– you know, we look at
each other's work all day.

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We sort of give each other
feedback.

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We notice something in the
newspaper and mention it.

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I mean, it just– it's sort of,
I don't know– it's been–

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it's grown organically, and
that's– it really works for us.

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[MEHRETU] There is a lot of fluidity
between us.

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There are moments where her work

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seeps through my work and
in and out of it.

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We look at each other's work

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more than anybody else's work,
and so that has to happen.

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Almost anything in the
environment tends to inform

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your work, for me, in one way
or another.

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Different studios have done that
for my work as well.

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Different– different–

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living in different places,
whether it's a place that has

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A view or no view, it all–
kind of that space and

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the light, all of those elements
affect, for me, a big part of

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the way that I end up evolving
with the work.

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The thing that keeps me going is
the painting,

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And in getting lost in doing
that, language is invented.

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A way of working in the language
has evolved for the last–

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through the last ten years,
but the paintings have changed

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every year through that, slowly,
because painting is slow.

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In the end, it's about trying to
make the painting.

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[ ANNOUNCER ] To learn more about Art21: "Art in the Twenty-First Century"

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and its educational resources,

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00:13:09,625 --> 00:13:12,996
please visit us online at: 
PBS.org

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Art21: “Art in the Twenty-First Century” is available on Blu-Ray and DVD.

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The companion book is also available.

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