Grey Area

Middle Grey 2007-2009

JULIE MEHRETU

"The paintings of this exhibition...Inspired in part by Berlin, the city in which Mehretu created the work, the paintings evoke the psychogeography of a place and the effects of the built environment on individuals, while at the same time contemplating the past and the surviving traces of lived history."

                 -from the Guggenheim web. site.

At the Guggenheim last week the rotunda was completely empty, waiting for it´s next exhibit but at the 2nd floor there was/is one bussing room with 6 large Julie Mehretu canvases.

I have always been curious about Julie Mehretu an artist born in Addis Ababa in 1970, what is so special about her? Now I know, you will have to see yourself.

Berliner Plaetze, 2008-2009

I think the best way to discover her work is to go all the way close and study the details, then move out from the canvas and let the whole impression play its own magnetic game with you.

The details are incredible, the intensity and the decision of every single line is admirable and when you get to sit down and just breathe it, it feels like music. Like a city that is in a continuos evolution and which dances it´s own unpredictable dance.

"Atlantic Wall" 2008-2009

"I think architecture reflects the machination of politics...
I don´t think of architectural language as just a metaphor about space, but about spaces of power, about ideas of power" 

Julie Mehretu´s own words, from the the Grey Area book that I tried to buy at the museum store but it was unfortunately sold out. The Woman behind the counter said, it is incredible, every time we have put out a few new ones they are gone the next minute.
I understand why. I would like to keep this memory with me as well:)

All the works are:

Commissioned Work by the Deutsche Bank
in consultation with the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation
for the Deutsche Guggenheim, Berlin

With Love! Kristin