Julie Mehretu Bücher

'The character of the everyday has always been repetitive and veiled by obsession and fear', wrote Henri Lefebvre in 1987. Drawing on his midtwentieth century 'critique of everyday life', a monumental contribution to social thought, 'The Everyday and Everydayness' takes seriously the everyday as a structure imposed upon all of life in the context of the 'modern'. At a moment of enforced reflection on the everyday, revered contemporary artist Julie Mehretu re-examines and responds to Lefebvre's text, bringing to bear on it her own longstanding fascination with questions of time, space and place. Mehretu's mastery in interrogating these concepts collides with Lefebvre's work in surprising ways that vindicate and invigorate this radical, rich and prescient text in the present

American artist Julie Mehretu is celebrated for her large-scale paintings and drawings that layer abstract forms with familiar architectural imagery. Inspired by historical photographs, urban-planning grids, modernist structures and graffiti, these semi-abstract works explore the intersections of power, history, dystopia and the built environment, and their impact on identity formation. This volume marks the exhibition of a new series of works commissioned by Deutsche Guggenheim, Berlin. In conjunction with this project, Mehretu established a studio in Berlin where she produced a remarkable suite of paintings that deal with erasure and decay. Addressing what it means to be an American artist in Germany during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars under the Bush administration, Mehretu's canvases meditate on the idea of the modern ruin. Featuring essays by Joan Young and Brian Dillon, this monograph includes a section of photographs tracing the development of the series in the artist's Berlin studio.