Julie Mehretu Interview: The In-Between Place

Рет қаралды 67,574

11 жыл бұрын

Interview with the American artist Julie Mehretu about how her perspective is the result of a "very important shift" in her life which occurred when her family moved to the US from Ethiopia. Mehretu fuses forms in order to create an 'in-between place', also for herself personally, she explains.
In this interview New York based Ethiopian artist Julie Mehretu (b.1970) talks about how she uses abstract art to create a psychological space for herself. Mehretu explains how her perspective and interest is informed by this "very important shift" which occurred when her family moved to the US right after the Ethiopian revolution. Her paintings are in some ways an attempt at making sense of herself as situated in a kind of in-between psychological space: "There's this type of spacial shift that has occurred, and there's a connection, a kind of psychological space, making sense of a place."
Julie Mehretu explains that she likes working with abstraction because it is "an in-between place". New forms are created through the intermingling of space and drawing, social and political elements and controlled moments combined with the intuitive. The paintings have many levels of reading, feeling, engaging, and they have no beginning nor end, Mehretu says: "You can see through everything."
Julie Mehretu is known for her densely-layered abstract paintings and prints. Her paintings are built up through layers of acrylic paint on canvas, overlaid with mark-making using pencil, pen, ink and thick streams of paint. Her canvases overlay different architectural features.
Julie Mehretu was interviewed by Jesper Bundgaard at Marian Goodman Gallery, New York 2013.
Camera and editing: Per Henriksen
Produced by Louisiana Channel
Copyright: Louisiana Channel, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, 2013.
Meet more artists at channel.louisiana.dk
Louisiana Channel is a non-profit video channel for the Internet launched by the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in November 2012. Each week Louisiana Channel will publish videos about and with artists in visual art, literature, architcture, design etc.
Read more:
channel.louisiana.dk/about
Supported by Nordea-fonden

Пікірлер: 44

@rodedraad Жыл бұрын

She inspires me the most out of all artists shes the one that sticks with me . The way she articulates how it feels to build a painting and how its visualised is just pure and real . I love her

@Revenantssf Жыл бұрын

Ah, one of my new favorite paintings and artist.

@sharonwillcutts7710 4 жыл бұрын

One of my all time favorite contemporary artists living today! Hope all is well with Julie in NYC during Covid-19

@eastontyson8953 2 жыл бұрын

sorry to be so off topic but does someone know a trick to log back into an Instagram account?? I was dumb forgot my account password. I would appreciate any help you can give me!

@cannongavin5194 2 жыл бұрын

@Easton Tyson instablaster ;)

@terrybrownbill2175 2 жыл бұрын

Love the images and love the intelligent thinking behind them.

@daisysviews 7 жыл бұрын

thank you for the description box.

@tibebubekele8751 3 жыл бұрын

I m proud she is from ethiopian ancestor.

@patriciarussell1177 3 жыл бұрын

Very much inspiring to my heart

@midoann 4 жыл бұрын

Beautiful art and explanation of it. I'm not a fan of contemporary art but hers is life like a human being sentient and with conscious

@Almascloud 5 ай бұрын

Very well put

@blockydrums846 10 жыл бұрын

wonderful

@Zed6788h 6 жыл бұрын

Well done

@jawazshabazz7420 6 жыл бұрын

I like dat shit! So broadly detailed... Showed me something that I never knew I wanted...

@lisengel2498 4 жыл бұрын

I dont see any Real opposition between the socalled figurative and abstract - i am convinced that all interesting art comes from an experience of a poetic of a moment - but human experience is truly multilayered and many ways of sharing an experience is possible and a dialoque between an art piece and a viewer ( sometimes the artist) is also multilayerd with many possibilities - and I see it as a deep communication going on between all what happensaround the event of look at art and reflect on art - its attractive in many ways because it opens into meetings with life in surprizing ways - its always about relating to the pure picture nomatter what technique or style it is always about the wonder of being open to what is

@carlosrivas2012 3 жыл бұрын

Muy profesional. Me gusta, hay talento....

@Lexter606 3 жыл бұрын

Every time when I see her work in a museum, I had to spend at least 30 minutes to an hour to look at it because of the complexity and layers of histories as well as time that she combined them into one oversize work of art. I often look at sketchy, smeared ink against the bold lines running crisscross each other as though I was going through a labyrinth of time - added that, let there be light on her canvas! She's one of my favorite modern artists of all times.

@higgsmerino3925 5 жыл бұрын

“Whoever wishes to devote themselves to painting should begin by cutting out their own tongue” ~ Matisse

@mattbray_studio 5 жыл бұрын

was thinking the same thing. her work is wonderful but this 'explanation' detracts IMO

@TheElie79 4 жыл бұрын

Totally logic.

@audreyh6628 4 жыл бұрын

Yeah...except artists these days are forced to give interviews and do artist's talks or no funding and no career. Now being an artist is being a brand. Just not talking isn't as easy as you might think

@9711ryu 3 жыл бұрын

Matisse did published his thoughts in writing too.

@Almascloud 5 ай бұрын

@@mattbray_studio She has to do that for the art academics and museums. Im sure like any artist she would rather not have to explain so much.

@actionnyc4370 4 жыл бұрын

Hello ‘nice video! Like 331👍👍

@76kitt 3 жыл бұрын

Does it matter who pays the commissions, or is that an in-between place, too?

@anoshya 3 жыл бұрын

I respect her art but prefer less talk and more silence.The Agnes Martin interview. 1997? had a profound effect on my own artistic career

@aquelpibe 2 жыл бұрын

I agree. Visual artists often cannot put in words what they do. I like her work but listening to this interview did not add much to my appreciation of it.

@Almascloud 5 ай бұрын

Shes forced to talk because of funding

@jan-martinulvag1953 3 жыл бұрын

Did anyone see her body language when she is walking. ??? I think she is unable to work abstract on a white canvas.

@miroporvos 6 жыл бұрын

Oh. This is that good shit.

@miroporvos 6 жыл бұрын

ah ah Ah this work is strong

@jawazshabazz7420 6 жыл бұрын

miroporvos my new inspiration, fasho...

@miroporvos 6 жыл бұрын

No doubt, this took me to a place that feels like I'd have been destined to find, but now. Time travel. Fa sho fa sho, big inspiration.

@ArgostheCreeper 2 жыл бұрын

She basically puts her stuff on other people's art and calls it hers.

@davidmayhew4818 6 жыл бұрын

Why does she have to have a narrative in abstraction? Identity art? Really. I think it's visual poetry and as such doesn't require an explanation. I see the arch. Drafting as male and the intuitive expressiinistic marks as female. Or ying and yang. Right and left brain. Order and chaos. Conscious, unconscious. A paradox. East and west.

@gptgod 6 жыл бұрын

It seems that youve formed a narrative/ explanation yourself, dont you think? As intelligent beings its near impossible to not draw some sort of explanation even if the work is holistically non objective. My interpretation is that from far it appears as an abstract and up close it becomes a series of realist conceptions. As to say that this world is nature/ spirit based (abstract) but there are earthly/ human intrusions (architectural drafting) that never quite overcome the abstract world around us. A hopeless grasp for power that only ends in humans destroying humans (incidents such as the revolution is Cairo she spoke of). Shes trying to capture that "in between space".

@coconuthead1055 6 жыл бұрын

You just narrated it lmao

@JadenJahci 4 жыл бұрын

Dave!! that is so funny,you broke down her work better quicker and more concise than the "artist" herself aka "oriental scroll fauder over blue prints" ever could,even if you left a hidden hot mic ON somewhere in her "dome fro" for the rest of her life without her knowing. I can't wait till she evolves her "Abstract" style into "Islamic Religious Fauder" over x-rays of young "Female Virgins" (not named Mary) Best Wishes, Billy Bushhhhh (in a burka)

@jan-martinulvag1953 3 жыл бұрын

There is no real abstract art that is not musical, and if your art is musical it tends to lean against pictures . And it is not very serious. If it has no humour, it means you are not serious. The natural state of the mind is formless/abstract. The mind sometimes tries to focus on abstraction, but it can't be done. If you focus on something with your mind you are focusing on something, not nothing. Drawing on a photo is stupid and wrong. You start out abstract and end up with an abstraction. Turners paintings are abstractions. Artists that cant talk cant paint. Composers that cant talk cant compose. When I Listen to music I hear the voice. If you don't start abstract you draw a line, a drawing. Music is also lines. Text is lines. Reflections are not lines. Don't reflect. Don't be a parasite.

@brockbierly 2 жыл бұрын

@Almascloud 5 ай бұрын

@@brockbierly😂