JULIE MEHRETU MARCH 25-AUGUST 8, 2021

JULIE MEHRETU MARCH 25-AUGUST 8, 2021

COMPREHENSIVE SURVEY OF ARTIST JULIE MEHRETU'S CAREER OPENS AT WHITNEY MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART THIS MARCH

Co-organized by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art, Julie Mehretu is a midcareer survey that will unite more than seventy paintings and works on paper dating from 1996 to the present, reflecting the breadth of Mehretu's multilayered practice. Born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in 1970 and based in New York City, Mehretu has created new forms and found unexpected resonances by drawing on art and human civilization histories. Her play with scale and technique, as evident in intimate drawings, large canvases, and complex forms of printmaking, will be explored in depth. Filling Whitney's entire fifth-floor gallery, the exhibition will take advantage of the expansive and open space to create dramatic vistas of Mehretu's often panoramic paintings. The first-ever comprehensive survey of Mehretu's career, Julie Mehretu, is organized by Christine Y. Kim, curator of contemporary art at LACMA, with Rujeko Hockley, an assistant curator at the Whitney. The installation at the Whitney is overseen by Hockley and on view from March 25 through August 8, 2021.

Few artistic encounters are more thrilling than standing close to one of Julie Mehretu's monumental canvases, enveloped in its fullness, color, forms, and symbolic content. Mehretu's conviction and mastery of composition and brushwork—along with the sheer energy and full-on commitment of her execution—endow her works with a life force, presence, and presentness, said Adam D. Weinberg, Alice Pratt Brown Director of the Whitney.