"All of these non-articulated crossroads' intersections of our histories are ineffable and private." — Robin Coste Lewis

Art Conversation con Julie Mehretu
Credits
Close ph: Matteo De Fina © Palazzo Grassi
Article
Fri, 03/29/2024 - 10:00

"All of these non-articulated crossroads' intersections of our histories are ineffable and private." — Robin Coste Lewis

Discover the Art Conversation with Julie Mehretu and her fellow artists Jessica Rankin, Nairy Baghramian, Tacita Dean and Robin Coste Lewis, moderated by the exhibition's curator Caroline Bourgeois and Patricia Falguières, one of the authors of the exhibition catalogue.

Reading time
80 mn

"[…] I do use words and language, but I read a lot of poetry and I'm very interested in the abstraction of poetry and the space it gives you. […]" — Jessica Rankin

"[…] It's been an interest [for me], the idea of performance, but I think a lot of that is about performative time, and how music is a time-based media that holds a certain kind of attention, and how to find ways to bring that into painting, because I really think these paintings require time. […]" — Julie Mehretu

 

Read, watch, listen

Video
Tue, 06/04/2024 - 17:12

"I have always worked with music and I think this show is really in a way like a score. It’s something that informed my aesthetics a lot, and my way of thinking." — Julie Mehretu

Julie Mehretu, Slouching Towards Bethlehem, First Seal (R 6:1), 2020 Pinault Collection © Julie Mehretu Courtesy of the artist and BORCH Editions
Julie Mehretu, Slouching Towards Bethlehem, First Seal (R 6:1), 2020 Pinault Collection © Julie Mehretu Courtesy of the artist and BORCH Editions

When you are thinking about jazz and you are thinking about history, it’s never just inventing by itself, it’s about quoting. […] Artists have always been in dialogue. They are dealing and negotiating not just their contemporary time, but we are negotiating current ideas about aesthetics critically.

Article
Sat, 06/01/2024 - 12:16

"To be transparent is the most fragile state of mind, and it needs to be supported, it needs to be embraced." — Nairy Baghramian

Julie Mehretu​, TRANSpaintings (hand), 2023, Courtesy of the artist and White Cube. Installation view, “Julie Mehretu. Ensemble”, 2024, Palazzo Grassi, Venezia. Ph. Marco Cappelletti © Palazzo Grassi, Pinault Collection
Julie Mehretu​, TRANSpaintings (hand), 2023, Courtesy of the artist and White Cube. Installation view, “Julie Mehretu. Ensemble”, 2024, Palazzo Grassi, Venezia. Ph. Marco Cappelletti © Palazzo Grassi, Pinault Collection

It’s a very collaborative work, it looks like a series, but each has its own individual voice. Julie Mehretu asked me if I could frame them, if I could give them a standing. So I came up with the idea of sculptural embracing. […] We all float somehow in Venice, on the sea and in the rooms.