The Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (MCA Australia) will host a major exhibition by acclaimed American artist Julie Mehretu, the first exhibition of the artist's work to be shown in Australia and the Asia-Pacific region from 29 November 2024 – 27 April 2025.
Julie Mehretu at MCA Australia will present more than 80 paintings and works on paper dating from 1995 to the present and will include new works created especially for the exhibition.
Julie Mehretu is widely regarded as one of the most significant painters of her generation. Named by Time magazine as of the ‘100 most influential people in 2020’ her paintings have been lauded for their capacity to convey the interconnectedness, energy and urgencies of our globalised world. In 2024, The New York Times described the artist as “one of today's most original and thought-provoking painters.”
Artist Julie Mehretu, who will be here in Sydney for the opening of the MCA Australia exhibition, has said about her work:
‘Abstraction is something that you cannot define, you cannot necessarily hold it. There is an opaqueness to how you think about and how one experiences the painting. My interests are not in trying to dictate, or determine, or explain, or try to give any information to anyone in that way. There aren’t any directives or proposals in these paintings. These paintings are experiential paintings that are informed by the time, by me, by this moment, by trying to digest that.'
Born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in 1970, and based in Harlem, New York, Mehretu is renowned for her powerful abstract paintings, layered with a variety of materials, marks and meanings. Often monumental in scale, her works reference the histories of painting, architecture, and past civilizations while addressing some of the most immediate themes of our contemporary moment, including migration, revolution, climate change, global capitalism, and our technological present.
Note: The MCA Australia is closed Tuesdays.