Julie Mehretu: Grey Area

usually I think I start the paintings with some type of abstract geometric structure to just be a ground or the or to allow there to be an investigation maybe at some point of entry in the painting rarely do I start with just a white white ground and so usually there's some type of decisions made from many drawings a selection of drawings that are then translated into kind of a geometric abstract moment to be to as a point of departure in the painting and then dependent dependent on that the the image and for this group the information that I was kind of collecting a lot of collecting architectural and information and also photographs that somehow inform intuitively the process that I'm gonna work on then it's usually this process of sorting out what would maybe be interesting and I trying to guide that super you know that let my mind or that my intuitively guide that process some in some way and then as the painting starts to come together and the architectural drawing starts to interact with the ground and at that moment usually the painting takes a clear direction for a form that I can somewhat envision and then at that point there I make a decision if it will just move purely into an architectural type of drawing or a moment or directional or if it'll be more like this picture which has this elements of geometric abstraction as well as just architectural drawing and and sometimes I make the decision to draw into forward further race or sand away part of that drawing and then work further into that and that's where the layers start to evolve but usually it's from the first piece of painting that happens on the painting decisions are made about how layered or simple the picture well that will evolve sometimes painters don't I don't feel that they're resolved for a few years and sometimes it's a it's a month two months sometimes the the idea is so simple and and as I start working into the picture to the painting it becomes a very it becomes very clear what the direction should be and sometimes that solution is for the Berliner Platz the architectural painting that really was a year and twelve fourteen months of actual drawing on the painting but it was with one you know with with one idea and direction that didn't change other than the way that the painting evolved other paintings where the draw where there's a lot more back and forth with my hand and with erasure and with questioning of the work then then it becomes something they usually work on I sit with I look at it spend a lot of time looking and trying to sort out with not intellectually but with intuitively working with the work and feeling what needs to have in this case I was working on most of the paintings at the same time some took I started working into earlier and others really took a long time to understand what I would do with them and whether or not they would what direction they would I would work with that or try and push them what became apparent or interesting to me in the work was this idea of the you see you could experience so just readily here in Berlin is this constant understood the vision or the the ghost of what was once a part of the city and what now is what remains and what has shifted and this in this in this moment of construction and reconstruction we do construction that being right on the cusp of those moments at the same time and I think to me that that was what really resonated and brought up a lot of this dealing with this aspect of erasure the ruin and the ghost and the paintings I think that became the ghost image and being able to really investigate those in a way or they can't they somehow pushed into the work while during my first experience here and think maintain though itself and the work as I live I mean New York has been New York New York goes through its changes and it's in the way it so it's but lived in the city since in 1992 so it's home in a way and we have my family and we have a life there and so for me New York has always in flux and shifting and but I you know I adore Berlin and I loved living here and I think that I would love to be able to find a way to be in both the cities that made some very very close friends and very dear friends and I think that that was also very influential and in being able to work so freely and and with a lot of space and time and then also be able to be in this kind of really poetic beautiful dialogue with with other working artists I think that's more difficult to New York it doesn't happen as readily and as as as as as kind of freely as it as it feels like it's happened for us here and there was painting and drawing and and and working with the you know developing a language to paint and draw and work and it was the need of ended and an interest in the work to use and be able to make this kind of connection to using the language of architecture and in the history of that that language as a point of context in the work and so I think with any creative process that's happened slowly and it's been a it's been a process of 15 years of really working very slowly and carefully with the different types of language and working out a way to make paintings and I think that's really the crux of it and but I didn't study architecture or I mean I think in the end I'm mostly interested in painting and drawing and making paintings and the work works with these different languages in a way to to to make these pictures what they are

Channel: DeutscheGuggenheim

Views: 6,969

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: julie, mehretu, deutsche, guggenheim, berlin, bank, commission, grey, area

Id: 259ttr6tk90

Length: 8min 55sec (535 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 05 2010