“Julie Mehretu.” Meaning, Matter, Memory: Selections from the Studio Museum in Harlem Collection, Studio Museum in Harlem, New York (2025)

Excerpt from the text:

"Among the Multitude VI is one in a suite of nine abstract paintings by Julie Mehretu that exudes the collective chaos, grief, confusion, and panic of the global crises from 2020 to 2022. More intimate in scale than the larger canvases she is best known for, Among the Multitude VI evokes a window to the exterior world, like the windows from which we peered out upon deserted streets—interrupted frequently by loud sirens and the flashing lights of ambulances—during the Covid lockdown, as well as the visual cacophony of television screens and devices repeating news footage and images of crowded hospitals, masked protesters, and death toll reports. As citizens, we remained trapped in a version of the Cretan labyrinth. Among the Multitude VI reflects a destabilized confrontation with an experience of interiority, with the markings on the surface of the canvas reminiscent of an MRI image detecting old markings of trauma on the brain..."

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“Julie Mehretu." Meaning, Matter, Memory: Selections from the Studio Museum in Harlem Collection, Studio Museum in Harlem, New York (2025)