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Julie Mehretu | nga

On November 17, 2013, Julie Mehretu discusses her career and artistic process, which can be seen firsthand in two prints, Circulation and Circulation (working proof 9), in the exhibition Yes, No, Maybe: Artists Working at Crown Point Press, on view at the National Gallery of Art from September 1, 2013, through January 5, 2014. Representing 25 artists, the exhibition features 125 working proofs and edition prints produced between 1972 and 2010 at Crown Point Press in San Francisco, one of the most influential printmaking studios of the last half century. Mehretu has completed collaborative projects at professional printmaking studios across the United States, among them Crown Point Press and Gemini G.E.L in Los Angeles. 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. This interview precedes Mehretu’s participation in the Diamonstein-Spielvogel Lecture Series.

11/03/15