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A Universal History of Everything and Nothing

Julie Mehretu - A Universal History of Everything and Nothing
A twenty-year survey of works by Julie Mehretu, considered as one of the foremost painters of her generation. Known primarily for her monumental paintings that combine architectural plans and city maps—as part of research into the themes of globalization and identity—her practice is based on a simultaneously rigorous and explosive exploration of drawing. The publication includes texts by renowned authors Amin Maalouf and Marina Warner.
“The paintings of Julie Mehretu captured the spirit of our fragile, new century. Monumentally scaled and visually explosive, they resonated with a perception of the world irrevocably impacted by an accelerated consciousness of the simultaneity of events in time and place and the intersecting flows of economies, geopolitics, and people that were their engine.”
Suzanne Cotter

Published on the occasion of Julie Mehteru's exhibition “A Universal History of Everything and Nothing” at the Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art in Porto and at Centro Botín in Santander, this book reflects the formal, pictorial, critical and poetic overlays that are fundamental to the artist's work. It includes newly commissioned essays by renowned authors Amin Maalouf and Marina Warner and a curatorial overview by Suzanne Cotter, Director of the Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art. New photography documenting Mehretu's process in the studio, together with details and large scale reproductions of paintings and drawings are accompanied by images selected by the artist as part of a richly layered and urgent visual universe.
Published on the occasion of the eponymous exhibitions at Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art, Porto, from May 19 to September 3, 2017, and at Centro Botín, Santander, from October 12, 2017, to February 25, 2018.
In her large-scale paintings, Ethiopian artist Julie Mehretu (born 1970 in Addis-Abeba, lives and works in New York) superimposes layers of historical events, memories, sensations and life experiences. A whirlwind of visual blasts that pursue harmony and convey vigorously, with a masterful use of colour, the artist's concern for her time.
Texts by Suzanne Cotter, Amin Maalouf, Marina Warner.

Published by Mousse.
 
published in November 2017
trilingual edition (English / Spanish / Portuguese)
22,5 x 32 cm (softcover)
272 pages (b/w ill.)
 
ISBN : 978-88-67492-81-7
EAN : 9788867492817
 
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