Julie Mehretu: Studio Assistants | Art21 "Extended Play"

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Julie Mehretu: Studio Assistants | Art21 "Extended Play"

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Күн бұрын

Episode #097: Filmed in her Berlin studio, a group of Julie Mehretu's assistants - Sarah Rentz, Damien Young, Erika Fortner and Harmony Murphy - discuss how they each bring different areas of expertise to the process of making paintings, from fine art backgrounds in printmaking and illustration to furniture polishing techniques and administrative skills.
Julie Mehretu's paintings and drawings refer to elements of mapping and architecture, achieving a calligraphic complexity that resembles turbulent atmospheres and dense social networks. Architectural renderings and aerial views of urban grids enter the work as fragments, losing their real-world specificity and challenging narrow geographic and cultural readings. The paintings' wax-like surfaces-built up over weeks and months in thin translucent layers-have a luminous warmth and spatial depth, with formal qualities of light and space made all the more complex by Mehretu's delicate depictions of fire, explosions, and perspectives in both two and three dimensions. Her works engage the history of nonobjective art-from Constructivism to Futurism-posing contemporary questions about the relationship between utopian impulses and abstraction.
Learn more about Julie Mehretu at: www.art21.org/a...
VIDEO | Producer: Wesley Miller & Nick Ravich. Interview: Susan Sollins. Camera: Ian Serfontein. Sound: Paul Stadden. Editor: Lizzie Donahue, Paulo Padilha & Joaquin Perez. Artwork Courtesy: Julie Mehretu. Special Thanks: Erika Fortner, Harmony Murphy, Sarah Rentz & Damien Young.
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Пікірлер: 41

@zissou6928 6 жыл бұрын

Must be fun to have 10 assistants

@amandabenarroch5990 5 жыл бұрын

There are artists much more talented and creative than Mehetu's, however they have not achieved that strong economic support, rather I think that the Economic group, which is behind her, creates all her work, is a great team with great craftsmen that could migrate to others Hampa Artists , but who enters that closed Circle?

@ziraprod6090 4 жыл бұрын

well said. unfortunately, you are correct.

@unknownfilmmaker777 2 жыл бұрын

Could you please recommend some other artists? Thank you.

@marieljoed 13 жыл бұрын

@sgerlichphotography Thanks for explaination! it truely cleared up my bafflement with such a grand production and body of work! As a matter of fact, i just saw her work at the guggeheim a month ago! It is amazing! I love the scale, and the precision and then apparent abstraction she incorporates? wonderful work!

@acbarahona 7 жыл бұрын

Where does the money come from to support such a studio?!?!?!

@pope400 6 жыл бұрын

CortoMaltese grants, private donations, personal funds, residency involvement, foundation money etc.

@TanningMiami 2 жыл бұрын

Her BS progressive speech that am sure she doesn't even authentically believe

@jackfirmin5814 Жыл бұрын

Also she sells pieces and then pays the studio and her assistants.

@davidmayhew4818 7 жыл бұрын

Just great stuff!!!

@marieljoed 14 жыл бұрын

where does this artist "julie" get the money to fund such an extravagant production of work? assistants,studio ect.? Transport of such large work to museums? Please! Someone explain to me the funding process of such a lifestyle!

@pope400 6 жыл бұрын

Firstly, it's important to understand that Mehretu's recognition has come after years, years, and years of dedication to the craft. She went to art school, got her MFA, had multiple residencies etc. People who become "professional" artists (e.g. they pay their bills with making work) PLAN on BECOMING that. Relentlessness is key. Grant after grant, handshake after handshake, "please" after "please" and above all, time. Lots of personal time. Years of personal time. Then.... maybe if you're lucky... you'll get the kind of consistent recognition to sustain yourself on art production alone if not most likely also working a side-job. It's not even about "wanting" it in the bullshit whitebread sense... You have to be dedicated to letting it OUT of you and if it means making small pieces while waiting tables, you do that, because at least you're letting the light out. She also gets commissioned to do work, which gets you a check to do the job. As somebody who paints, I can only dream of having the kind of financial flexibility to do things on this scale, but, it happens to the ones who are not only making work at others want to see (very important), but someone who is unrelenting in their pursuit to engage the art scene around them and inject their colours into the world. By force if necessary.

@anawieder5003 5 жыл бұрын

She’s been a really famous artist for many years now. At this point she’s able to create this kind of work because she has institutional backing that fund her projects, many of which are commissioned for specific museums and other institutions. Also, she’s made enough money from her work to live on. It’s the dream for every artist

@gavinyates9189 5 жыл бұрын

She's around the 1% who cherish the hard Edge garbage art that she is able to create there is nothing new to what she does it's just she's around the right people.

@jackfirmin5814 Жыл бұрын

why did you put her name in quotation marks?

@ammusi 14 жыл бұрын

beautiful work !

@superfly2449 6 жыл бұрын

Decor for banks, big corporations, hotels and the like? Not bad. Fine, and fun, for her and her employees. Check out Thomas Nozkowski, for one example, for more relatable art, though.

@HenhousetheRed 14 жыл бұрын

I want to be an artist assistant one day... Sigh!

@pope400 6 жыл бұрын

downgoesigby it's a good way to get something on your resume and many people use assistant work to network as well. It's a good gig and a tough one to get. The assistants don't always want to be known as professional artists. There are many assistants who know what kind of hell it is to keep a career going as an artist so they pay their bills with work like these people are doing while making their own stuff on the side.

@OngoingBox 4 жыл бұрын

so cool!

@zo0oz901 12 жыл бұрын

amaziiing >>> WoW

@thunbergmartin 8 жыл бұрын

This video intrigues me, is this a smart way of criticising the absence of the artist? factory and abcense

@thunbergmartin 8 жыл бұрын

Its just so strange that this is represented a an artist with one name, is this art in the 21st century much like the car factory a century before

@mvo9856 6 жыл бұрын

Artist's have worked with assistants for hundred's of years, this is not a new or unusual practice. Michelangelo had assistants. (Did you think he painting the entire Cistine Chapel ceiling by himself?) All great things in history are achieved through collaboration. It's not obscene, it's wonderful that people can work together and do great things. These artists might be doing some of the physical steps of the painting process but without Julie's guidance the art wouldn't exist.

@bodeaalex1142 3 жыл бұрын

Just like car factories where all the old masters' studios in the past. Do some reading before you jump with an invalid argument.

@thunbergmartin 3 жыл бұрын

@@bodeaalex1142 Sorry if this offended you. It was not so much an argument, more a curios question from my part. Also, it is at this point a comment more then 4 years old, so I cannot answer you in accordance with my past self. I do believe there are problematic to equate older artistic group-endeavours with modern studio practices however (Jean Baudrillards and Guy Debord thinking around the spectacle and the copy is two concepts that lends itself to seeing how different art is consumed today for example). To say that the artist factory is the same as it was yesterday perhaps negates healthy criticism. There is a glimpse into how i think, right now. Hope this is more understandable, I don't think I intended to "jump in" with an invalid arguments, so I hope this lessens your feeling of that. Have a nice day!

@amandabenarroch5990 5 жыл бұрын

Hay artistas mucho más talentosos y creativos que ella, sin embargo, no han logrado ese fuerte apoyo económico, más bien creo que el grupo económico, que está detrás de ella, crea todo su trabajo, es un gran equipo con grandes artesanos que podrían emigrar a Otros Hampa Artistas, pero ¿quién entra en ese círculo cerrado?

@Nataliia_Ria 6 жыл бұрын

So. Basically it IS printing. Julie does composition in digital and then her assistants "print it out" layer by layer. I was wondering about the technique when I saw that smooth surface and semi-transparency on some lines. It looked like it was all done in digital and then was just printed out. Not sure that the result worth all the effort. Especially on paintings that are bigger then normal room. And especially on abstract paintings.

@jackfirmin5814 Жыл бұрын

I dont see why you break this down to printing? cause it looks to me like they do paint those layers?