Diamonstein-Spielvogel Lecture Series: Julie Mehretu

November 2013 - Julie Mehretu, artist, in conversation with Judith Brodie, curator and head, department of modern prints and drawings, National Gallery of Art. Julie Mehretu is best known for large-scale, densely packed paintings that combine meticulous rendering and seemingly spontaneous abstract gesture. Her work, including drawings and prints, is built up from multiple layers of archival, geographical, meteorological, and architectural imagery—designs, plans, diagrams, blueprints, ruins, charts, and graphs—traced and punctuated with calligraphic marks and obscuring erasures. She maps the histories of civilizations past and present, engaging with issues of social organization, globalization, and geopolitical connectivity. Mehretu has completed collaborative projects at professional printmaking studios across the United States, among them Gemini G.E.L in Los Angeles and Crown Point Press in San Francisco. For the Diamonstein-Spielvogel Lecture Series at the National Gallery of Art, Mehretu joined Judith Brodie on November 17, 2013 to discuss her career and artistic process, which can be seen firsthand in two prints: Circulation, in the Gallery’s collection, and Circulation (working proof 9), on view through January 5, 2014 in the exhibition Yes, No, Maybe: Artists Working at Crown Point Press.