Julie Mehretu

Before Viewing

• How does the scale of an artwork affect the way that one might experience it?

         The scale of an artwork can make the viewer see the work differently as a whole in comparison to what the work may look like in section up close.

• How do artists use strategies of erasure and concealment in their work, and to what effect? Can absence be as compelling as presence? How?

        Using strategies of erasure and concealment can be used to create mystery therefore creating a more interesting piece.

• How can the process of drawing and painting, like sculpture, be both additive and subtractive?

         When you add onto something in either drawing or painting, one is covering what was previously there either negative or positive space.

While Viewing

• What roles do Mehretu's assistants play in the process of creating her work? How might her paintings make the viewer reconsider those forms, and see them in new ways?

          Mehretu's assistants help create the finished product of her work with some of the general grunt work of sanding, and perfecting the slight mistakes in the creating of the piece. Each of the assistants come from an art background and have been placed into their own jobs. The piece itself are geometric with shapes and lines going everywhere similar to those on complicated maps and diagrams. Maps and diagrams can look much like art being seen as patterns and paths which the eye is taken on.

After Viewing

• How do Mehretu's paintings relate to works of epic scale in the history of art? How would you describe her work, in relation to building and architecture, or destruction and disintegration? What might the history include? How can the artist incorporate these ideas in one painting?

          In history there are paintings of great scales stories high in and on buildings. Although the style has changed the effect of working so large has remained constant. 

          When Mehretu talks of the history of capitalism and economic development of lower Manhattan she may be referencing the times of economic hardship and the attempt at rebuilding the financial well being of those in the area. In order to incorporate these ideas an artist could use those ideas of absence as though a piece of what the area was has been lost, or broken.

• How do artists use strategies of erasure and concealment in their work, and to what effect? Can absence be as compelling as presence? How?

          Artists paint over their work sometimes large portions erasing what was there to add another element or to change how the work was previously seen. This absence in a work can be just as compelling as presence by creating an openness and wonder to the work creating questions for the viewer.