The Modern Art Museum Gebre Kristos Desta Center in collaboration with the United States Embassy is very pleased to announce the upcoming exhibition, Julie Mehretu: The Addis Show, from July 8, 2016 to August 6, 2016. The show will feature 17 of Mehretu’s paintings, ranging from her earliest paintings to her most recent works. The Museum is especially pleased to host this show as it will mark the first time that Mehretu will exhibit her work in Ethiopia, where she was born and raised until she was 7.

Julie Mehretu is widely considered one of the finest painters of her generation. She is known for her densely layered and mesmerizing abstract paintings, which often gesture to the language of architecture and geography as inspiration for abstract compositions, as well as commentary on the complex social worlds we inhabit. Mehretu’s work offers not only a new form of visual abstraction, but also a new perspective of the social and geographic networks that underpin the modern world.

Along with the exhibition there will be a series of events with the artist, including a daylong symposium featuring artists, architects, curators and art historians, and workshops and lectures at Addis Ababa and Bahir Dar Universities.

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Julie Mehretu was born in Addis Ababa in 1970 and currently lives and works in New York City. She studied at University Cheikh Anta Diop in Dakar and earned her BA from Kalamazoo College, and MFA from Rhode Island School of Design. She has exhibited in several important group shows including Istanbul Biennial (2003); Whitney Biennial and São Paolo Biennial (2004); the Biennale of Sydney and the Museum of Modern Art, New York (2006); British Museum (2010); and Documenta XIII, Kassel (2012). Solo exhibitions include Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (2003); St Louis Art Museum (2005); MUSAC, Léon, Spain (2006); Detroit Institute of Art and Museum of Modern Art, Humlebaek, Denmark (2007); Deutsche Guggenheim, Berlin (2009) and Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (2010). Among Mehretu’s awards are the Berlin Prize (2007) from the American Academy in Berlin; a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation “Genius” Award (2005); and the American Art Award from the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2005). In 2015 she was honored with the US State Department’s National Medal of Arts.

Event Time & Date: 08/07/2016 – 06/08/2016

Venue details :   The Modern Art Museum: Gebre Kristos Desta Center of Addis Ababa University |  Sedist kilos Compound of College of Business and Economics POB 11 93 | Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Organiser: The Modern Art Museum: Gebre Kristos Desta Center in collaboration with the United States Embassy | +251 11 1242345/6

Event website: Julie Mehretu: The Addis Show

Event cost: Free