000			03131nam a2200205Ia 4500
008			231023s9999 xx 000 0 und d
010			_a2013939478
020			_a9780944219225
245		0	_aJulie Mehretu _b: Liminal Squared _c/ Editor: Adam Lehner
260			_bMarian Goodman Gallery, NY; White Cube, London; _c2013
300			_a178p; _c26x22cm
520			_aTexts by Tacita Dean and T.J. Demos. Julie Mehretu's work examines the architecture of the Middle East in “Liminal Squared,” at Marian Goodman Gallery. With their blueprintlike underdrawings of sites in the Middle East, partly obscured by stipplings of ink and acrylic, the latest paintings by Julie Mehretu allude to mass demonstrations and other current events in that region. Yet they don’t look all that different from the paintings she exhibited at the Guggenheim in 2010, as the Arab Spring was just starting to gain momentum. This steadiness is not entirely surprising; Ms. Mehretu has always been an artist of tipping points rather than cataclysmic changes. She works slowly, much more so than many of her peers, and her paintings aspire to show not only sweeping revolutions but also alterations to the urban fabric that take place over centuries. “Ra 2510,” for instance, collapses contemporary stadium architecture onto the Gates of Babylon. All of the paintings superimpose clusters of short brush strokes and the occasional sweeping vector over intricate architectural plans and elevations, staging a contest between two kinds of drawing or, as T J Demos writes in a catalog essay, “between architecture and gesture, between representation and abstraction.” In these new works the top layer seems to be winning, or at least vying harder for attention; it’s loose and glyphic in “Co-Evolution of the Futurhyth Machine (After Kodwo Eshun),” and pixelated in “Insile” (which is further distinguished by a floating white trapezoid). The bottom layer might be a floor plan of a mosque, an ancient city map or a panoramic street view. It almost doesn’t matter, except in the mesmerizing, mural-sized “Beloved (Cairo)”; here, clouds of ink and acrylic part to reveal a clear outline of Tahrir Square. It’s a rare grand gesture in a show that’s best characterized as an accumulation of small ones. Julie Mehretu’s work is a universe of conflictive forces. Through a large selection of color plates and close-ups, this catalogue offers a remarkable study of some of the artist’s monumental abstractions. The book starts with a text by artist Tacita Dean, which underlines the decisive role played by Julie Mehretu’s personal history, at the crossroads of Ethiopian and American cultures. Not only a reference to neocolonial past, Mehretu’s style is a depiction of the overlapping paths that compose our globalized society; the space where concrete structures, humans and networks interact.
546			_aEnglish
650			_aN4390-5098 Visual Arts. Exhibitions _92
700			_aDean, Tacita _91646
700			_aDemos, T.J. _91647
700			_aLehner, Adam _91648
700			_aMehretu, Julie _91649
942			_cBK
999			_c3684 _d3684