Julie Mehretu

Mehretu was born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in 1970, the first child of an Ethiopian college professor of geography and a Jewish American Montessori teacher. They fled the country in 1977 to escape political turmoil and moved to East Lansing, Michigan, for her father's teaching position in economic geography at Michigan State University.Calvin Tomkins (March 29, 2010). "[http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/03/29/100329fa_fact_tomkins Big Art, Big Money: Julie Mehretu's Mural for Goldman Sachs]". The New Yorker. Retrieved August 4, 2017.{{Rp|215}}

A graduate of East Lansing High School, Mehretu received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Kalamazoo College in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and did a junior year abroad at Cheikh Anta Diop University (UCAD) in Dakar, Senegal, then attended the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, Rhode Island, where she earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in 1997.{{cite web |url=https://white-cube.files.svdcdn.com/production/uploads/CVs/Julie-Mehretu/Julie-Mehretu-CV-September-2023.pdf?dm=1697102894 |title=Julie Mehretu CV |publisher=White Cube}} She was chosen for the CORE program at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, a residency that provided a studio, a stipend, and an exhibition at the museum.Calvin Tomkins (March 22, 2010), [https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/03/29/big-art-big-money "Big Art, Big Money"], The New Yorker.

File:Invisible Sun (algorithm 5, second letter form), 2014, Julie Mehretu.jpg in 2022]]

Mehretu's canvases incorporate elements from technical drawings of various urban buildings and linear illustrations of urban efficiency, including city grids and weather charts.{{Cite web|url=http://museum.cornell.edu/exhibitions/excavations-prints-julie-mehretu|title=Excavations: The Prints of Julie Mehretu}} The pieces do not contain any formal, consistent sense of depth, instead utilizing multiple points of view and perspective ratios to construct flattened re-imaginings of city life.[http://whitecube.com/artists/julie_mehretu/ Julie Mehretu] White Cube, London. Her drawings are similar to her paintings, with many layers forming complex, abstracted images of social interaction on a global scale.[http://artmuseum.msu.edu/exhibitions/past/mehretu/index.html Julie Mehretu — New Drawings, February 1 – March 16, 2008] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100610080209/http://artmuseum.msu.edu/exhibitions/past/mehretu/index.html |date=June 10, 2010 }} Kresge Art Museum, Michigan State University. The relatively smaller-scale drawings are opportunities for exploration made during the time between paintings.

In 2002, Mehretu said of her work:

{{blockquote|I think of my abstract mark-making as a type of sign lexicon, signifier, or language for characters that hold identity and have social agency. The characters in my maps plotted, journeyed, evolved, and built civilizations. I charted, analysed, and mapped their experience and development: their cities, their suburbs, their conflicts, and their wars. The paintings occurred in an intangible no-place: a blank terrain, an abstracted map space. As I continued to work I needed a context for the marks, the characters. By combining many types of architectural plans and drawings I tried to create a metaphoric, tectonic view of structural history. I wanted to bring my drawing into time and place.Laurie Firstenberg, "Painting Platform in NY", Flash Art Vol. XXXV No. 227, November | December 2002, p. 70}}

File:Julie Mehretu (13899464483) (cropped).jpg

Emperial Construction, Istanbul (2004) exemplifies Mehretu's use of layers in a city's history. Arabic lettering and forms that reference Arabic script scatter around the canvas. In Stadia I, II, and III (2004) Mehretu conveys the cultural importance of the stadium through marks and layers of flat shape. Each Stadia contains an architectural outline of a stadium, abstracted flags of the world, and references to corporate logos.{{Cite book|title=Julie Mehretu: City Sitings|last=Hart|first=Rebecca R.|publisher=Detroit Institute of Art|year=2007|isbn=978-0-89558-161-7|location=Detroit, MI}}

Mogamma: A Painting in Four Parts (2012), the collective name for four monumental canvases that were included in dOCUMENTA (13), relates to 'Al-Mogamma', the name of the all purpose government building in Tahrir Square, Cairo, which was both instrumental in the 2011 revolution and architecturally symptomatic of Egypt's post-colonial past. The word 'Mogamma', however, means 'collective' in Arabic and historically, has been used to refer to a place that shares a mosque, a synagogue and a church and is a place of multi faith.[https://whitecube.com/exhibitions/exhibition/julie_mehretu_bermondsey_2013/ Julie Mehretu: Liminal Squared, 1 May – 7 July 2013] White Cube, London. A later work, The Round City, Hatshepsut (2013) contains architectural traces of Baghdad, Iraq, itself – its title referring to the historical name given to the city in ancient maps. Another painting, Insile (2013) built up from a photo image of Believers' Palace amid civilian buildings, activates its surface with painterly ink gestures, blurring and effacing the ruins beneath.[http://www.mariangoodman.com/exhibitions/2013-05-11_julie-mehretu/ Julie Mehretu: Liminal Squared, May 11 – June 22, 2013] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190926122254/https://www.mariangoodman.com/exhibitions/2013-05-11_julie-mehretu/ |date=September 26, 2019 }} Marian Goodman Gallery, New York.

File:Conversion, S.M. del Popolo-after C., 2019-2020, Julie Mehretu.jpg in 2022]]

In 2007, the investment bank Goldman Sachs gave Mehretu a $5 million commission for a lobby mural. The resulting work Mural was the size of a tennis court and consisted of overlaid financial maps, architectural drawings of financial institutions, and references to works by other artists. Calvin Tomkins of the New Yorker called it "the most ambitious painting I've seen in a dozen years", and another commentator described it as "one of the largest and most successful public art works in recent times".{{cite web |url=https://www.vogue.com/article/julie-mehretu-sfmoma-howl-commission-harlem |title=Julie Mehretu Started Her Majestic New Paintings Right After the Election |last=Kazanijan |first=Dodie |date=September 4, 2017 |website=Vogue |publisher= |access-date=August 8, 2023 |quote=}}

While best known for large-scale abstract paintings, Mehretu has experimented with prints since graduate school at the Rhode Island School of Design, where she was enrolled in the painting and printmaking program in the mid-1990s. Her exploration of printmaking began with etching. She has completed collaborative projects at professional printmaking studios across America, among them Highpoint Editions in Minneapolis, Crown Point Press in San Francisco, Gemini G.E.L. in Los Angeles, and Derrière L'Étoile Studios and Burnet Editions in New York City.[http://alums.vassar.edu/news/2011-2012/120617-fllac-mehretu.html The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center presents the exhibition "Excavations: The Prints of Julie Mehretu," April 13 – June 17, 2012] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120803033259/http://alums.vassar.edu/news/2011-2012/120617-fllac-mehretu.html |date=August 3, 2012 }} Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center at Vassar College, Poughkeepsie.

Mehretu was a resident of the CORE Program, Glassell School of Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, (1997–98) and the Artist-in-Residence Program at the Studio Museum in Harlem (2001).[https://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/julie-mehretu "Julie Mehretu"], PBS Art in the Twenty-First Century, season 5 (2009), Systems. During a residency at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, in 2003, she worked with thirty high school girls from East Africa. In the spring of 2007 she was the Guna S. Mundheim Visual Arts Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin.[http://www.americanacademy.de/home/person/julie-mehretu Fellow: Julie Mehretu] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304030007/http://www.americanacademy.de/home/person/julie-mehretu |date=March 4, 2016 }} American Academy in Berlin, Berlin. Later that year, she led a monthlong residency program with 40 art students from Detroit public high schools.Hilarie M. Sheets (November 11, 2007), [https://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/11/arts/design/11shee.html "Industrial Strength in the Motor City"], The New York Times.

File:Inside_the_Studio_with_Julie_Mehretu_00.33.jpg

During her residency in Berlin, Mehretu was commissioned to create seven paintings by the Deutsche Guggenheim; titled Grey Area (2008–2009), the series explores the urban landscape of Berlin as a historical site of generation and destruction.{{cite book|title=The reckoning : women artists of the new millennium|last1=Scott|first1=Sue|date=2013|publisher=Prestel|isbn=978-3791347592}}{{Rp|221}} The painting Vanescere (2007), a black-and-white composition that depicts what appears to be a maelstrom of ink and acrylic marks, some of which are sanded away on the surface of the linen support, propelled a layering process of subtraction in the Grey Area series. Parts of Fragment (2008–09) and Middle Grey (2007–09) feature this erasing technique. Another in the series that was painted in Berlin, Berliner Plätze (2008–09), holds a phantom presence of overlapped outlines of nineteenth-century German buildings that float as a translucent mass in the frame.{{Cite book|title=Julie Mehretu: Grey Area|last=Young|first=Joan|publisher=Guggenheim Museum Publications|year=2009|isbn=978-0-89207-396-2|location=New York, NY}} The art historian Sue Scott has this to say of the Grey Area series: "In these somber, simplified tonal paintings, many of which were based on the facades of beautiful nineteenth-century buildings destroyed in World War II, one gets the sense of buildings in the process of disappearing, much like the history of the city she was depicting."{{Rp|221}} As Mehretu explains in Ocula Magazine, "The whole idea of 20th-century progress and ideas of futurity and modernity have been shattered, in a way. All of this is what is informing how I am trying to think about space."{{Cite web|date=December 18, 2020|title=Julie Mehretu on the Right to Abstraction|url=https://ocula.com/magazine/conversations/julie-mehretu/|access-date=December 18, 2020|website=Ocula|language=en}}

In 2017, Mehretu collaborated with jazz musician and interdisciplinary artist Jason Moran to create MASS (HOWL, eon)].[https://archive.performa-arts.org/archive/17b-pc-0008 "MASS (HOWL, eon)", 2017] Performa Archive Presented at Harlem Parish as part of the Performa 17 biennial, MASS (HOWL, eon) took the audience on an intensive tour of Mehretu's canvas while musicians played the composition by Moran.

Mehrhtu's first work in painted glass was installed in 2024. The {{convert|85|foot|m}} tall artwork, Uprising of the Sun, is inspired by a quote from Barack Obama delivered in a speech at a memorial ceremony for the civil-rights-era [[Selma to Montgomery marches|

Selma marches]]. It was installed as a window in the museum tower of the Barack Obama Presidential Center.{{Cite web |title=Monumental painted-glass window, "Uprising of the Sun," will welcome visitors to the Obama Presidential Center |date=2024-09-09 |url=https://www.obama.org/stories/glass-window-uprising-of-the-sun-obama-presidential-center/ |access-date=2024-09-09 |website=Obama Foundation |language=en}}

Mehretu is a member of the Artists Committee of Americans for the Arts.[https://www.americansforthearts.org/by-program/promotion-and-recognition/strategic-partners/artists-committee Artists Committee] Americans for the Arts.

File:Secretary Kerry Awards the Medal of Arts Lifetime Achievement Award to Julie Mehretu.jpg

In 2000, Mehretu was awarded a grant from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists Award. She was the recipient of the 2001 Penny McCall Award{{cite web|url=http://www.pennymccallfoundation.org/2001.html|title=creative-link.org|website=www.pennymccallfoundation.org|access-date=April 20, 2018|archive-date=March 31, 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220331090047/http://www.pennymccallfoundation.org/2001.html|url-status=dead}} and one of the 2005 recipients of the MacArthur Fellowship, often referred to as the "genius grant."{{cite web|url=http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/ae/art/3375771|title=She can't be bought, but you can give her money|date=October 2, 2005 |access-date=April 20, 2018}}

In 2013, Mehretu was awarded the Barnett and Annalee Newman Award, and in 2015, she received the US Department of State Medal of Arts from Secretary of State John Kerry.{{cite web|title=Julie Mehretu – 2015 Award Winner|url=http://www.art.state.gov/ProjectDetail.aspx?id=107880&typeId=6|website=US Department of State|access-date=January 28, 2017|archive-date=February 24, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170224025911/http://www.art.state.gov/ProjectDetail.aspx?id=107880&typeId=6|url-status=dead}} In 2020, Time magazine included Mehretu in its list of the 100 most influential people.Tessa Solomon (September 23, 2020), "[https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/patrisse-cullors-julie-mehretu-and-tourmaline-make-2020-time100-list-1234571502/ Artists Patrisse Cullors, Julie Mehretu, and Tourmaline Make 'Time 100' List]", ARTnews. In 2023, German automaker BMW selected Mehretu to paint its annual "art car" for entry at the 24 Hours of Le Mans race.{{cite web |url=https://edition.cnn.com/2023/06/29/style/bmw-art-car-julie-mehretu/index.html |title=BMW taps artist Julie Mehretu to paint its latest Art Car |last=Valdes-Dapena |first=Peter |date=June 29, 2023 |website=CNN |publisher= |access-date=August 8, 2023 |quote=}}

Art critic for The Australian newspaper Christopher Allen described Mehretu's work as "the last feeble gasp of an overhyped and exhausted New York art market".{{cite news|url=https://www.theaustralian.com.au/arts/review/the-best-and-worst-of-art-exhibitions-in-2024/news-story/d44177d14bb5e9da0b55ff658d0f4431|access-date=December 29, 2024|url-access=subscription|title=The best and worst of art exhibitions in 2024 (print: The culture gets smaller)|author=Christopher Allen|author-link=Christopher Allen (critic)|date=December 28, 2024|newspaper=The Australian|pages=18–19|department=Review}}

Mehretu is included in Time{{'}}s 100 Most Influential People of 2020.{{Cite magazine |title=Julie Mehretu: The 100 Most Influential People of 2020 |url=https://time.com/collection/100-most-influential-people-2020/5888498/julie-mehretu/ |access-date=September 23, 2020 |magazine=Time}} The following year, The New York Times described her as a "rare example of a contemporary Black female painter who has already entered the canon."{{cite news |last=Pogrebin |first=Robin |author-link=Robin Pogrebin |date=August 8, 2023 |title=Julie Mehretu's Reckoning With Success |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/21/arts/design/julie-mehretu-and-success.html |access-date=August 8, 2023 |newspaper=The New York Times}}

In 2023, she was one of two women artists whose work was among the top ten in contemporary auction sale price.{{Cite web |last=Network |first=Artnet Gallery |date=2024-03-05 |title=5 Quick Takeaways From the Artnet Intelligence Report |url=https://news.artnet.com/art-world/5-quick-takeaways-from-the-artnet-intelligence-report-2439207 |access-date=2024-03-09 |website=Artnet News |language=en-US}}

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• Blue Field (1997), Museum of Fine Arts, Houston{{cite web |title=Blue Field |url=https://emuseum.mfah.org/objects/39211/blue-field? |website=MFAH |publisher=Museum of Fine Arts, Houston |access-date=August 16, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220810012741/https://emuseum.mfah.org/objects/39211/blue-field |archive-date=August 10, 2022 |url-status=live}}
• Babel Unleashed (2001), Walker Art Center, Minneapolis{{cite web |title=Babel Unleashed |url=http://walkerart.org/collections/artworks/babel-unleashed |website=Walker Art |access-date=June 5, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210803211929/http://walkerart.org/collections/artworks/babel-unleashed |archive-date=August 3, 2021 |url-status=live}}
• Retopistics: A Renegade Excavation (2001), Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas{{cite web |title=Reopistics: A renegade Excavation |url=https://collection.crystalbridges.org/objects/4178/retopistics-a-renegade-excavation? |website=Crystal Bridges |publisher=Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art |access-date=August 16, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220529032245/https://collection.crystalbridges.org/objects/4178/retopistics-a-renegade-excavation |archive-date=May 29, 2022 |url-status=live}}
• Congress (2003), The Broad, Los Angeles{{cite web |url=https://www.thebroad.org/art/julie-mehretu/congress |title=Congress |last= |first= |date= |website=The Broad |publisher= |access-date=October 22, 2023 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210618075702/https://www.thebroad.org/art/julie-mehretu/congress |archive-date=June 18, 2021}}
• Empirical Construction, Istanbul (2003), Museum of Modern Art, New York{{cite web |title=Empirical Construction, Istanbul |url=https://www.moma.org/collection/works/91778? |website=MoMA |publisher=Museum of Modern Art |access-date=June 5, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220115132823/https://www.moma.org/collection/works/91778 |archive-date=January 15, 2022 |url-status=live}}
• Entropia (review) (2004), Brooklyn Museum, New York{{cite web |title=Entropia (review) |url=https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/opencollection/objects/168332 |website=Brooklyn Museum |access-date=June 5, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210830120343/https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/opencollection/objects/168332 |archive-date=August 30, 2021 |url-status=live}}
• Stadia I (2004), San Francisco Museum of Modern Art{{cite web |title=Stadia I |url=https://www.sfmoma.org/artwork/2006.7/ |website=SFMOMA |access-date=June 5, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191207025713/https://www.sfmoma.org/artwork/2006.7/ |archive-date=December 7, 2019 |url-status=live}}
• Stadia II (2004), Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh{{cite web |title=Stadia II |url=https://collection.cmoa.org/objects/3229aff9-ee40-4ef0-9789-106221a25892 |website=Carnegie Museum of Art |access-date=June 5, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201129040921/https://collection.cmoa.org/objects/3229aff9-ee40-4ef0-9789-106221a25892 |archive-date=November 29, 2020 |url-status=live}}
• Stadia III (2004), Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond{{cite web |title=Stadia III |url=https://vmfa.museum/piction/6027262-57439008/ |website=VMFA |publisher=Virginia Museum of Fine Arts |access-date=August 16, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210825131302/https://vmfa.museum/piction/6027262-57439008/ |archive-date=August 25, 2021 |url-status=live}}
• Local Calm (2005), The San Diego Museum of Art{{cite web |title=Local Calm |url=https://collection.sdmart.org/objects-1/info/22214?sort=0&objectName=Local%20Calm |website=SDMArt |access-date=June 5, 2022}}
• Atlantic Wall (2008-2009), Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York{{cite web |title=Atlantic Wall |url=https://www.guggenheim.org/artwork/25118 |website=Guggenheim |publisher=Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum |access-date=August 16, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211019063940/https://www.guggenheim.org/artwork/25118 |archive-date=October 19, 2021 |url-status=live}}
• Mural (2009), 200 West Street, New York City{{Cite web |last=George |first=Cassidy |date=March 26, 2021 |title=The Irreducible Julie Mehretu |url=https://www.thecut.com/2021/03/the-irreducible-julie-mehretu.html |access-date=September 13, 2023 |website=The Cut |language=en-us}}
• Auguries (2010), The Broad, Los Angeles{{cite web |title=Auguries |url=https://www.thebroad.org/art/julie-mehretu/auguries |website=The Broad |access-date=August 16, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210918162741/https://www.thebroad.org/art/julie-mehretu/auguries |archive-date=September 18, 2021 |url-status=live}} and National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.{{cite web |title=Auguries |url=https://collections.si.edu/search/detail/edanmdm:nmafa_2011-5-1? |website=SI |publisher=Smithsonian Institution |access-date=August 16, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220816023000/https://collections.si.edu/search/detail/edanmdm:nmafa_2011-5-1 |archive-date=August 16, 2022 |url-status=live}}
• Untitled (2011), Studio Museum in Harlem, New York{{cite web |title=Untitled |url=https://www.studiomuseum.org/collection-item/untitled-7 |website=Studio Museum |date=January 7, 2019 |access-date=June 5, 2022}}
• Mogamma, A Painting in Four Parts: Part 3 (2012), Tate, London{{cite web |title=Mogamma, A Painting in Four Parts: Part 3 |url=https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/mehretu-mogamma-a-painting-in-four-parts-part-3-t13997 |website=Tate |access-date=June 5, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220324224236/https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/mehretu-mogamma-a-painting-in-four-parts-part-3-t13997 |archive-date=March 24, 2022 |url-status=live}}
• Mogamma, A Painting in Four Parts: Part 4 (2012), Museum of Fine Arts, Houston{{cite web |title=Mogamma, A Painting in Four Parts: Part 4 |url=https://emuseum.mfah.org/objects/120736/mogamma-a-painting-in-four-parts-part-4? |website=MFAH |publisher=Museum of Fine Arts, Houston |access-date=August 16, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220816023213/https://emuseum.mfah.org/objects/120736/mogamma-a-painting-in-four-parts-part-4 |archive-date=August 16, 2022 |url-status=live}}
• Cairo (2013), The Broad, Los Angeles{{cite web |title=Cairo |url=https://www.thebroad.org/art/julie-mehretu/cairo |website=The Broad |access-date=August 16, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220707090552/https://www.thebroad.org/art/julie-mehretu/cairo |archive-date=July 7, 2022 |url-status=live}}
• Invisible Sun (algorithm 5, second letter form) (2014), Museum of Modern Art, New York{{cite web |title=Invisible Sun |url=https://www.moma.org/collection/works/186548?classifications=any&date_begin=Pre-1850&date_end=2022&q=mehretu&utf8=%E2%9C%93&with_images=1 |website=MoMA |access-date=June 5, 2022}}
• Myriads, Only by Dark (2014), National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; and Pérez Art Museum Miami{{cite web |title=Myriads, Only by Dark |url=https://www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.166013.html#inscription |website=NGA |publisher=National Gallery of Art |access-date=June 5, 2022}}
• A Love Supreme (2014-2018), Art Institute of Chicago{{cite web |title=A Love Supreme |url=https://www.artic.edu/artworks/246863/a-love-supreme |website=AIC |access-date=June 5, 2022}}
• Hineni (E. 3:4) (Me voici) (2018), Centre Pompidou, Paris{{cite web |title=Hineni (E. 3:4) (Me voici) |url=https://www.centrepompidou.fr/en/ressources/oeuvre/cqEj4By |website=Centre Pompidou |access-date=August 16, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220816021953/https://www.centrepompidou.fr/en/ressources/oeuvre/cqEj4By |archive-date=August 16, 2022 |url-status=live}}
• Haka (and Riot) (2019), Los Angeles County Museum of Art{{cite web |title=Haka (and riot) |url=https://collections.lacma.org/node/2285624 |website=LACMA |access-date=June 5, 2022}}
• Conversion (S.M. del Popolo/after C.) (2019-2020), Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York{{cite web |title=Conversion |url=https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/848796?ft=mehretu&offset=0&rpp=40&pos=1 |website=Met Museum |access-date=June 5, 2022}}

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In 2016, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art commissioned Mehretu to create a diptych, with each massive painting flanking the staircase in the atrium which is accessible and free to the public. HOWL, eon (I, II) (2016-2017) was first exhibited to the public on September 2, 2017. To facilitate the creation of the scale of the diptych, Mehretu used a decommissioned church in Harlem as her studio to create. Throughout the creation of her piece, she collaborated with jazz pianist Jason Moran.{{Cite web|url=https://art21.org/watch/extended-play/julie-mehretu-politicized-landscapes-short/|title=Politicized Landscapes, Julie Mehretu|website=Art21|language=en|access-date=March 15, 2019}}{{Cite web|url=https://news.artnet.com/exhibitions/julie-mehretu-sfmoma-commission-debut-1069271|title=How Julie Mehretu Created Two of Contemporary Art's Largest Paintings for SFMOMA|date=September 5, 2017|website=artnet News|language=en-US|access-date=March 15, 2019}} HOWL, eon (I, II) is a political commentary on the history of the western United States' landscape, including the San Francisco Bay Area. The foundation of each work contains digitally abstracted photos from recent race riots, street protests, and nineteenth-century images of the American West.{{Cite web|url=https://www.sfmoma.org/exhibition/julie-mehretu-howl-eon-i-ii/|title=Julie Mehretu: HOWL, eon (I, II) |website=SFMOMA |access-date=April 15, 2019}}{{cite web |title=Julie Mehretu, HOWL, eon (I, II), 2016-2017 |url=https://www.sfmoma.org/artwork/2017.237.A-B/ |website=SFMOMA |access-date=June 5, 2022}}

In 2001, Mehretu participated in the exhibition Painting at the Edge of the World at the Walker Art Center. She later was one of 38 artists whose work was exhibited in the 2004-5 Carnegie International: A Final Look.{{cite web|url=http://www.cmoa.org/info/npress71.asp |title=2004–5 Carnegie International: A Final Look |date= April 24, 2005 |website=Carnegie Museum of Art |access-date=January 14, 2009 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081011200623/http://www.cmoa.org/info/npress71.asp |archive-date=October 11, 2008 }} She has participated in numerous group exhibitions, including one at the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson (2000). Her work has appeared in Freestyle exhibition at the Studio Museum in Harlem (2001); The Americans at the Barbican Gallery in London (2001); White Cube gallery in London (2002),{{cite web|url=https://whitecube.com/exhibitions/exhibition/julie_mehretu_duke_street_2002/ |publisher=White Cube|title=Renegade Delirium |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221201194222/https://whitecube.com/exhibitions/exhibition/julie_mehretu_duke_street_2002/ |archive-date= Dec 1, 2022 }} the Busan Biennale in Korea (2002); the 8th Baltic Triennial in Vilnius, Lithuania (2002); and Drawing Now: Eight Propositions (2002) at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Mehretu's work was also included in the "In Praise of Doubt" exhibition at the Palazzo Grassi in Venice in the summer of 2011 as well as dOCUMENTA (13) in Kassel in 2012. In 2014, she participated in The Divine Comedy: Heaven, Purgatory and Hell Revisited by Contemporary African Artists, curated by Simon Njami.{{cite web |url=https://www.scadmoa.org/exhibitions/2014/the-divine-comedy-heaven-purgatory-and-hell-revisited-by-contemporary-african |title=The Divine Comedy: Heaven, Purgatory and Hell Revisited by Contemporary African Artists |publisher=SCAD Museum of Art |access-date=August 8, 2023 |quote=}}

In 2021, the Whitney Museum of American Art devoted an entire floor to a retrospective of Mehretu's career.{{cite web |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/25/arts/design/julie-mehretu-whitney-review.html |url-access=subscription |title=Julie Mehretu's Long Journey Home |last=Farago |first=Jason |date=March 25, 2021 |website=The New York Times |publisher= |access-date=August 8, 2023 |quote=}} Mehretu's work is included in Every Sound Is a Shape of Time, a 2024 collections-based exhibition organized by the Pérez Art Museum Miami and curated by Franklin Sirmans, the museum director.{{Cite web |title=Every Sound Is a Shape of Time: Selections from PAMM's Collection • Pérez Art Museum Miami |url=https://www.pamm.org/en/exhibition/every-sound-is-a-shape-of-time-selections-from-pamms-collection/ |access-date=2024-09-04 |publisher=Pérez Art Museum Miami}}

The first exhibition dedicated to Mehretu in Australia and the Asia-Pacific region, titled A Transcore of the Radical Imaginatory, was held by the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Sydney, from November 2024 to April 2025.[https://www.mca.com.au/exhibitions/julie-mehretu-a-transcore-of-the-radical-imaginatory/ "Julie Mehretu: A Transcore of the Radical Imaginatory"], Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Sydney, 2024

Mehretu's painting Untitled 1 (2001) sold for $1.02 million at Sotheby's in September 2010.{{cite news|url=http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/09/26/3022202.htm?section=justin |title=Lehman's art firesale fetches $12m |work=Just In |publisher=ABC News |date=September 26, 2010 |access-date=December 5, 2013 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140912205459/http://www.abc.net.au/news/2010-09-26/lehmans-art-firesale-fetches-12m/2274674?section=justin |archive-date= Sep 12, 2014 }} Its estimated value had been $600–$800,000.{{cite web|url=http://artobserved.com/2010/08/ao-auction-preview-two-years-after-declaring-bankruptcy-lehman-brothers-hopes-to-sell-hundred-of-artwords-worth-millions-at-3-auctions-in-uk-us/ |title=AO Auction Preview: Two years after declaring bankruptcy Lehman Brothers hopes to sell hundred of artworks worth millions at 3 auctions in UK & US |publisher=AO Art Observed™ |first1=J. |last1=Mizrachi |date=August 20, 2010 |access-date=December 5, 2013}} At Art Basel in 2014, White Cube sold Mehretu's Mumbo Jumbo (2008) for $5 million.Georgina Adam (June 20, 2014), "[http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/05c22454-f6d9-11e3-8ed6-00144feabdc0.html Brisk business at the Basel fair]", Financial Times. In 2023, Michael Ovitz sold Mehretu's Walkers With the Dawn and Morning (2008) for $10.7 million, setting a new record both for the artist herself and any artist born in Africa.Angelica Villa (November 15, 2023), "[https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/records-for-julie-mehretu-barkley-hendricks-sothebys-310-m-contemporary-sale-november-2023-1234686971/ Records for Julie Mehretu, Barkley Hendricks Enliven Sotheby's $310 M. Contemporary Sale]", ARTnews.

In 2005, Mehretu's work was the object of the Lehmann v. The Project Worldwide case before the New York Supreme Court, the first case brought by a collector regarding their right to secure primary access to contemporary art.{{Cite book|title=The $12 Million Stuffed Shark: The Curious Economics of Contemporary Art|last=Thompson|first=Don|publisher=St. Martin's Press|year=2008|isbn=9780230610224|location=United States|pages=[https://archive.org/details/12millionstuffed0000thom/page/196 196]|url=https://archive.org/details/12millionstuffed0000thom/page/196}} The case involved legal issues over her work and the right of first refusal contracts between her then-gallery and a collector.{{cite web|url=http://www.artinfo.com/news/story/1168/julie-mehretu/|title=Julie Mehretu|author=João Ribas|date=November 8, 2005|publisher=ARTINFO|type=interview|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101103232526/http://www.artinfo.com/news/story/1168/julie-mehretu/|archive-date=November 3, 2010|url-status=dead|access-date=August 3, 2017}} In return for a $75,000 loan by the collector Jean-Pierre Lehmann to the Project Gallery, made in February 2001, the gallery was to give Lehmann a right of first refusal on any work by any artist the gallery represented, and at a 30 per cent discount until the loan was repaid. Lehmann saw this loan as direct access to Mehretu's work, however, there were four other individuals who were also given right of first choice from the gallery's represented artists.{{Cite web|url=http://www.artnet.com/Magazine/news/artnetnews2/artnetnews1-18-05.asp|title=artnet.com Magazine News|website=www.artnet.com|access-date=April 14, 2019}} The gallery sold 40 works by Mehretu during the period of the contract, with some offered for discounts of up to 40 percent. Lehmann saw that several Mehretu pieces available in the catalog of the Walker Art Center had been sold to collector Jeanne Greenberg Rohatyn, and suspected that the agreement was not being kept.{{Cite web|url=https://www.christopher-mason.com/journalism-articles/2018/7/27/she-cant-be-bought-julie-mehretu|title=She Can't be Bought: Julie Mehretu|website=Christopher Mason|date=July 2, 2018 |language=en-US|access-date=April 14, 2019}} He subsequently wrote Haye demanding $17,500, and, after no offer of Mehretu pieces was made, he filed suit. The case, eventually won by Lehmann, revealed to a wider public precisely what prices and discounts galleries offer various collectors on paintings by Mehretu and other contemporary artists – information normally concealed by the art world.

In October 2023, Mehretu broke the auction record for an African artist at Sotheby's Hong Kong, with her piece Untitled (2001), which sold for $9.32 million.{{Cite web |last=Rabb |first=Maxwell |date=October 9, 2023 |title=Ethiopian painter Julie Mehretu breaks auction record for an African artist. |url=https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-ethiopian-painter-julie-mehretu-breaks-auction-record-african-artist |access-date=October 16, 2023 |website=Artsy}}

Mehretu lives in a two-story house in Harlem.Jori Finkel (March 7, 2021), "[https://www.wmagazine.com/culture/julie-mehretu-interview-whitney-museum-retrospective-denniston-hill Inside Julie Mehretu's Richly Layered World]", W. She married artist Jessica Rankin in 2008, with whom she has two children, Cade Elias (born 2005) and Haile (born 2011); her mother-in-law is author and poet Lily Brett.{{citation |title=She Can't Be Bought |last=Mason |first=Christopher |url=http://nymag.com/nymetro/arts/art/11265/ |date=February 28, 2005 |periodical=New York Magazine |accessdate=March 10, 2008 }} The couple separated in 2014.[https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/12/t-magazine/jessica-rankin-partners-friends.html Partners, Now Friends] T: The New York Times Style Magazine, April 12, 2021.

Mehretu maintains a studio in Chelsea near the Whitney Museum of American Art.Robin Pogrebin (March 21, 2021), "[https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/21/arts/design/julie-mehretu-and-success.html Julie Mehretu's Reckoning With Success]", The New York Times. In 2004, she co-founded – together with Lawrence Chua and Paul Pfeiffer – Denniston Hill, an artist residency on a 200-acre campus in Sullivan County, New York. She also worked from an old arms factory in Berlin in 2007 and the former St. Thomas the Apostle Church in Harlem from 2016 to 2017.Hilarie M. Sheets (August 3, 2017), "[https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/03/arts/design/julie-mehretu-san-francisco-museum-of-modern-art.html In an Unused Harlem Church, a Towering Work of a 'Genius']", The New York Times.

In October 2024, The Whitney Museum announced that Mehretu had donated more than two million dollars to its "Free 25 and Under" program that provides free access to museum guests under the age of twenty-five.Crow, Kelly (October 22, 2024).[https://www.wsj.com/arts-culture/fine-art/whitney-art-museum-free-for-visitors-25-and-younger-b82eba39?mod=fine-art_news_article_pos1 The Whitney Museum Will Be Free for All Visitors 25 Years Old and Younger.Artist Julie Mehretu donated over $2 million so the museum could waive the entrance fee for anyone 25 and younger for the next three years.] Wall Street Journal.Editors of ARTnews (October 23, 2024). "Julie Mehretu Donates Millions to Whitney so Under 25s Go Free, Libbie Mugrabi Claims Art Lender Stole Her Warhol Painting: Morning Links for October 23, 2024". ARTnews.

{{Reflist}}

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• [http://www.carliergebauer.com/artists/julie_mehretu/ Website of her gallery carlier | gebauer including CV and works] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240228154246/https://www.carliergebauer.com/artists/julie_mehretu |date=February 28, 2024 }}
• [https://archive.today/20130414225111/http://www.highpointprintmaking.org/editions/mehretu_julie/index.html Julie Mehretu at Highpoint Center for Printmaking, Minneapolis]
• [http://www.walkerart.org/archive/2/AF7361E991C363206165.htm Julie Mehretu at Walker Art Center, Minneapolis]
• [http://africa.si.edu/exhibits/passages/mehretu-conversation.html Julie Mehretu interviewed for Ethiopian Passages] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110927231153/http://africa.si.edu/exhibits/passages/mehretu-conversation.html |date=September 27, 2011 }}
• [http://artobserved.com/2010/08/ao-auction-preview-two-years-after-declaring-bankruptcy-lehman-brothers-hopes-to-sell-hundred-of-artwords-worth-millions-at-3-auctions-in-uk-us/ 2010 article including an image of Untitled 1]

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