Julie Mehretu has been awarded the rank of Officer of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture. Mehretu’s remarkable body of work has been exhibited at Galerie Marian Goodman since 2013. Her most recent exhibitions at this Paris location include a collaboration with Robin Coste Lewis in 2022 and with Tacita Dean in 2018. The prestigious award recognises eminent artists and creators, and those who have contributed significantly to furthering the arts and culture in France and throughout the world.
In exploring palimpsests of history, from geological time to a modern day phenomenology of the social, Julie Mehretu’s works engage viewers in a dynamic visual articulation of contemporary experience, a depiction of social behavior and the psychogeography of space. Mehretu’ s work is informed by a multitude of sources including politics, literature and music. Most recently her paintings have incorporated photographic images from broadcast media which depict conflict, injustice, and social unrest. These graphic images act as intellectual and compositional points of departure; ultimately occluded on the canvas, they remain as a phantom presence in the highly abstracted gestural completed works. Mehretu’s practice in painting, drawing and printmaking equally assert the role of art to provoke thought and reflection, and express the contemporary condition of the individual and society.
Mehretu receiving the Ordre des Arts is a recognition of her work as a strong advocate and catalyst for social justice and cultural preservation initiatives. As co-founder of Denniston Hill in 2004 with Paul Pfeiffer and Lawrence Chua, Mehretu has helped create a residency that serves as a sanctuary for artists and multidisciplinary creatives to reconnect with nature, explore creative ideas and foster communities. Mehretu, along with Adam Pendleton, Rashid Johnson and Ellen Gallagher, acquired the childhood home of Nina Simone, which was at risk of demolition, in 2017 to preserve and honor the legacy of the seminal singer and civil rights activist; it is now under the care of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. A committed supporter of the movement to end mass incarceration, Mehretu donated a painting to Rockefeller Philanthropies in 2021 to support the Art For Justice Fund, which was created to provide grants to artists and advocates focused on safely reducing the prison population. The work raised $6.5 million, marking it as the largest contribution from an artist to the fund after the fund’s initiator, Agnes Gund. This year, Mehretu fully funded a much-needed Campaign Coordinator position for the Michigan office of the Campaign for Fair Sentencing of Youth. This initiative seeks to abolish the policy of Juvenile Life Without Parole (JLWOP) sentencing in Michigan, where 70 percent of those serving JLWOP sentences are Black.
