Julie Mehretu in "Systems" - Season 5 - "Art in the Twenty-First Century" | Art21

Art21 proudly presents an artist segment, featuring Julie Mehretu, from the "Systems" episode in Season 5 of the "Art in the Twenty-First Century" series.
"Systems" premiered in October 2009 on PBS.
Julie Mehretu, shown working with her assistants in Berlin on seven large canvases for a show at Deutsche Guggenheim, says, “The thing that keeps me going is the painting and in getting lost in doing that a language is invented.”
Mehretu’s abstract compositions reference modernist architecture, Google Maps, Coliseum-like buildings, and defaced structures. Mehretu is also shown working on the biggest project of her young career: a 21 by 85 foot long mural commissioned by a major financial institution in Lower Manhattan, to be completed during the most severe financial crisis since the Great Depression.
Julie Mehretu was born in 1970 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Learn more about the artist at: art21.org/arti...
CREDITS
Created by: Susan Sollins & Susan Dowling. Executive Producer & Curator: Susan Sollins. Series Producer: Eve-Laure Moros Ortega. Associate Producer: Migs Wright. Associate Curator: Wesley Miller. Production Manager: Nick Ravich. Production Coordinator: Larissa Nikola-Lisa. Consulting Director: Charles Atlas. Editor: Lizzie Donahue. Director of Photography: Robert Elfstrom, Ian Serfontein, Joel Shapiro, Martial Barrault, Richard Kane, & Richard Numeroff. Additional Photography: Sam Henriques & Bryan Hithe. Sound: Tom Bergin, Ray Day, Roger Phenix, Paul Stadden, & Merce Williams. Assistant Camera: Clair Popkin, Michael Pruitt-Bruun, Jean-Pierre Vial, Kenny Weinberg, & James Weinheimer. Field Producer: Mariana Valdrighi Amaral. On Screen Interviews: Sarah Rentz, Harmony Murphy, Erika Fortner, Damien Young, Jessica Rankin, Brienne Arrington, Analia Saban, Larry Little, & Horace Varnum.
Major underwriting for Season 5 of Art in the Twenty-First Century is provided by National Endowment for the Arts, PBS, Agnes Gund, Bloomberg, The Nathan Cummings Foundation, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, The Broad Art Foundation, Korea Foundation, The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation.
Full credits available at art21.org/watc...
#JulieMehretu #Systems #Art21
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[@dialunamusic]

I was blown away by her show at the Whitney. There’s so much energy and sophistication in her pieces. Do yourself a a favor and stand in front of the work in person if you can!

[@cpi23]

oh god this is so so so good!

[@libertyfilm4096]

She dosent paint any more? She only comes up with the idea !!!! 😍👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

[@ynat957]

I think she also does fine tuning

[@libertyfilm4096]

Great work !!!!

[@Sirlene-et9ut]

Love it ❤

[@trashtbyghosts]

we ❤u julie!

[@dn7096_]

Speaking truth,👏👏👏

[@wentiantann]

It turns into a romantic story ❤

[@postmax81]

I like some of these works, and of course the scale is monumental, but I think the thoughts behind them do not really transfer. Does it really need this theoretical talk to give the work value? I can understand that these works come out of personal research, but I feel me as a viewer benefits from not having to see it through that lens, but rather find a personal interpretation.

[@SusanJarmon-e4l]

early Silk Road inspiration mapping

[@libertyfilm4096]

Are they getting good pay?

[@peaoat3608]

I enjoy the originals. The giant versions are made to accommodate the venue. There is no life in them.

[@postmax81]

I feel that the art market tends to want push fro this kind of monumentality, both in concept and in execution. I am with you that the original drawings and sketches feel more alive than the high gloss renders. As good as the assistants may be, the scale of these projects make them less personal and hard to.penetrate as a viewer.

[@michellewu9097]

Why make a painting to create problems?

[@matthewstokes1608]

Dudd.

[@gregorylent]

like cy twombly, and i don't get him either ..

[@juliavanschalkwyk9321]

It IS much about mark making...

[@brightmaroon]

You haven't experience Twombly properly - I sat in a room that was 3 walls of Twombly with a bench in the center. Sat there in silence for about 5 minutes....and I was like "This is an Epic War."

[@oseikofi4121]

The bones of Da Vinci, Michaelangelo, the Impressionists and Picasso are rattling in their tombs.

[@unamor]

I am pretty convinced a lot of the ones you mentioned would actually appreciate her work enormously.

[@juliavanschalkwyk9321]

​​@@unamor yes, i agree. The masters who worked on the same scale, also had co-workers doing certain parts. . And it is all about mark making and layers, shapes... and i think there is some mathematical calculations.as well in these shapes