Julie Mehretu was widely celebrated as the heiress to Jackson Pollock. But where many of Pollock’s paintings seem separate from real prehistory, Mehretu combines abstraction and representation in open response to current events: the Arab Spring, deadly forest fires on the west coast of the United States, the burning of Rohingya villages in Myanmar, the killing of Michael Brown by police in Ferguson, Missouri. Some of her paintings and works on paper look like distorted views of cities from above; others are similar to blueprints for another world. Amid the layers and layers of symbols, shapes, vectors, and lines, however, one can see the architectural precision and control of Mehretu. An exhibition showing more than twenty years of their work opens at the Whitney Museum of American Art on March 25th and runs through August 8th. A selection of pictures from the exhibition appears below.
Julie Mehretu, Black city, 2007, ink and acrylic on canvas, 120 x 192 “. Pinault Collection, Paris, France. © Julie Mehretu.

Julie Mehretu, Untitled 2, 1999, ink and polymer on canvas mounted on cardboard, 59 3/4 × 71 3/4 “. Private collection with kind permission of White Cube. © Julie Mehretu.

Julie Mehretu, Migration direction map (large)1996 Ink on Mylar, 22 x 15 in. Private collection. © Julie Mehretu.

Julie Mehretu, Summoned Parts (Eye), Ferguson, 2016, ink and acrylic on canvas, 84 x 96 ″. The Broad Art Foundation, Los Angeles. © Julie Mehretu.

Julie Mehretu, Mind-wind field drawings (quarantine studio, i.e.) # 1, 2019-2020, ink and acrylic on paper, 26 x 40 inches. Private collection courtesy of the Marian Goodman Gallery New York / Paris. © Julie Mehretu.

Julie Mehretu, Hineni (E. 3: 4), 2018, ink and acrylic on canvas, 96 × 120 ″. Center Pompidou, Paris, Musée national d’art modern / Center de création industrial; Gift of George Economou, 2019. © Julie Mehretu.

Julie Mehretu, Retopistik: A renegade excavation, 2001, ink and acrylic on canvas, 101 1/2 × 208 1/2 ″. Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas 2013.28. © Julie Mehretu.

Julie Mehretu, Mogamma (A painting in four parts) (1 of 4), 2012, ink and acrylic on canvas, 180 × 144 ″. Guggenheim Abu Dhabi. © Julie Mehretu.
“Julie Mehretu” opens at the Whitney Museum of American Art on March 25th and runs through August 8th.