Ethiopian Review

Ethiopian-American artist Julie Mehretu’s paintings — Grey Area — is currently on display at the Deutsche Guggenheim in Berlin.

It’s the fifteenth work within the Deutsche Guggenheim’s series of commissions that started in 1998 with James Rosenquist, followed by Andreas Slominski, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Lawrence Weiner, Jeff Koons, Rachel Whiteread, Bill Viola, Gerhard Richter, John Baldessari, William Kentridge, Hanne Darboven, Phoebe Washburn, Jeff Wall, Anish Kapoor, and now Julie Mehretu.

Julie Mehretu’s project for the Deutsche Guggenheim was conceived during a residency at the American Academy in Berlin in 2007 and later completed when she established a studio in the city in 2008-09.

The exhibition has been organized by Joan Young, Associate Curator of Contemporary Art at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. In the first part of our coverage of the exhibition Joan Young gives us an introduction to the work of Julie Mehretu in general and her suite of paintings Grey Area in particular.

Julie Mehretu was born in 1970 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Raised in Michigan, she now lives and works in New York.

Julie is best known for her densely-layered paintings. She has taken part in several group exhibitions such as the 8th Istanbul Biennale (2003), and the Whitney Biennial (2004). She had solo shows at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (2003), St. Louis Art Museum (2005) and MUSAC, Léon, Spain (2006), among others.

Julie Mehretu: Grey Area at the Deutsche Guggenheim Berlin runs until January 6, 2010.

More information is available at DB ArtMag.