Julie Mehretu

Julie Mehretu (b. 1970 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia) is an American artist best known for her densely-layered abstract paintings and prints. Raised in Michigan, Mehretu received a BFA from Kalamazoo College in Kalamazoo, Michigan and did a junior year abroad at University Cheik Anta Diop (UCAD) in Dakar, Senegal, then attended the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, Rhode Island, where she earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in 1997. She now lives and works in New York City. Mehretu shares her New York studio with her partner, also a celebrated artist, Jessica Rankin.citation |title=She Can't Be Bought |last=Mason |first=Christopher |url=http://nymag.com/nymetro/arts/art/11265/ |date=February 28, 2005 |periodical=New York Magazine |accessdate=2008-03-10 ] Mehretu is represented by The Project gallery in New York City [ [http://www.elproyecto.com/ The Project : A contemporary art gallery located in New York ] ] whose director is Christian Haye and shows work with Jay Jopling at the White Cube art gallery in London [ [http://www.whitecube.com White Cube ] ] as well as carlier gebauer in Berlin [ [http://www.carliergebauer.com/ carlier gebauer ] ] .

Exhibitions and awards

Mehretu was the recipient of the 2001 Penny McCall Award. [ [http://www.pennymccallfoundation.org/2001.html pennymccallfoundation.org] ] Her work has been included in Greater New York, P.S.1 Contemporary Arts Center, New York (2000), [http://www.walkerart.org/archive/2/AF7361E991C363206165.htm walkerart.org] ] and she has participated in numerous group exhibitions, including one at the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson (2000). More recently, her work has appeared in Free Style at the Studio Museum in Harlem (2001); The Americans at the Barbican Gallery in London (2001); White Cube gallery in London (2002) [ [http://www.whitecube.com/exhibitions/renegadedelirium/ White Cube — Renegade Delirium ] ] , the Busan Biennale in Korea (2002); the 8th Baltic Triennial in Vilnius, Lithuania (2002); and Drawing Now: Eight Propositions (2002) at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

In 2001 she participated in the exhibition "Painting at the Edge of the World" at the Walker Art Center.

On September 20, 2005, she was named as one of the 2005 recipients of the MacArthur Fellowship, often referred to as the "genius grant." [Houston Chronicle http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/ae/art/3375771] Mehretu was granted the award amid legal issues over her work and the right of first refusal contracts between her gallery and a collector. [citation | title= Julie Mehretu| author=João Ribas| publisher=ARTINFO | year=2005 | date= November 8, 2005 | url=http://www.artinfo.com/news/story/1168/julie-mehretu/ | accessdate=2008-04-22 ]

Her works are held in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art. [ [http://www.moma.org/collection/browse_results.php?criteria=O%3AAD%3AE%3A25414&page_number=1&template_id=6&sort_order=1 MoMa online catalog] ]

elected Solo Exhibitons

*2008
**Julie Mehretu: City Sitings, North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, NC
**Julie Mehretu: City Sitings, Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown, MA

* 2007
** Julie Mehretu: Black City, Kunstverein Hannover, Hanover
** Julie Mehretu: Black City, Louisiana Museum, Humlebaek
** Julie Mehretu: City Sitings (traveling through 2008), The Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit

*2006
** Black City, MUSAC - Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y Léon, Léon
** Julie Mehretu – Heavy Weather, Crown Point Press, San Francisco, CA
**The Unhomely: Phantom Scenes in Global Society, 2nd International Biennial of Contemporary Art in Seville, Spain

*2005
**Drawings, The Project, New York, NY
**Currents, St Louis Art Museum, St Louis, MO

*2004
**Matrix, University of California Berkeley Art Museum, CA
**Julie Mehretu: Drawing into Painting, REDCAT, Los Angeles, CA
**Julie Mehretu: Drawing into Painting, Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY
**Déjà-vu, carlier │gebauer, Berlin, Germany
**Landscape Allegories, Thomas Dane, London, UK

*2003
**Julie Mehretu: Drawing into Painting, Palm Beach Institute of Contemporary Art
**Julie Mehretu: Drawing into Painting, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (travelling)

*2002
**Julie Mehretu: Renegade Delirium, White Cube, London, UK

*2001
**The Project, New York, NY
**Art Pace, San Antonio, TX

*1999
**Module, Project Row Houses, Houston, TX

*1998
**Barbara Davis Gallery, Houston, TX

*1996
**Paintings, Sol Kofler Gallery, Providence, RI

*1995
**Ancestral Reflections, Archive Gallery. New York, NY
**Ancestral Reflections, Hampshire College Gallery, Amherst, MA

References

External links

* [http://www.highpointprintmaking.org/editions/mehretu_julie/index.html Julie Mehretu at Highpoint Center for Printmaking, Minneapolis]
* [http://www.walkerart.org/archive/2/AF7361E991C363206165.htm Julie Mehretu at Walker Art Center, Minneapolis]
* [http://africa.si.edu/exhibits/passages/mehretu-conversation.html Julie Mehretu interviewed for Ethiopian Passages]
* [http://www.dia.org/exhibitions/item.asp?webitemid=1059 Mehretu's Detroit Institute of Arts exhibtion, November 2007]