Julie Mehretu: A Transcore of the Radical Imaginatory
Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Sydney
November 29, 2024 – April 27, 2025

Julie Mehretu: A Transcore of the Radical Imaginatory 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. Mehretu is widely regarded as one of the most significant painters of her generation. Named by Time magazine as one 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.’

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 civilisations while addressing some of the most immediate themes of our contemporary moment, including migration, revolution, climate change, global capitalism, and our technological present.

MCA Australia Director, Suzanne Cotter said about the exhibition: ‘The Museum of Contemporary Art Australia is delighted to be presenting to audiences in Australia this remarkable exhibition by an artist who is undoubtedly one of today’s most exciting living painters and whose dynamic language of abstraction speaks so powerfully to the contemporary world in which we live. The experience of Mehretu’s paintings is nothing short of a visual and physical event. We are proud to present this year’s Sydney International Art Series with Julie Mehretu to build upon the MCA’s history of introducing to the public in Australia the work of today’s most influential artists.

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 one thinks about and 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.”

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