Julie Mehretu's "Kairos/Ghostly Variations": A Major Exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art Warsaw

This exhibition showcases the work of Julie Mehretu, an American artist of Polish roots, exploring themes of critical turning points and the past haunting the present. It delves into her practice, which draws from cartography, poetry, art history, and socio-political events to create complex paintings and drawings.

The exhibition 'Kairos / Wariacje duchologiczne' (Kairos/Ghostly Variations) delves into the practice of Julie Mehretu, an Ethiopian-born American artist of Polish heritage renowned for her expansive and intricate works. The exhibition's title merges the ancient concept of 'kairos'—a critical turning point—with Jacques Derrida's notion of 'hauntology,' where the present is perpetually visited by specters of an unresolved past. Mehretu's art, seen as a significant contribution to contemporary painting, extends the legacy of American abstract expressionism. Her pieces integrate diverse sources, including cartography, poetry, art history, music, media imagery, and socio-political events, forming the basis for her paintings, drawings, and print experiments. The exhibition invites visitors into the depth of Mehretu's artistic process, featuring works from various stages of her career. This includes analytical diagrams from the late 1990s, drawings, watercolors, works on paper and foil from the first decade of the 21st century, and her recent large-scale canvases, where dense layers function as seismographic records of contemporary societal tensions. The 'Archive Pages' series (1997), rarely displayed works on paper, offers direct insight into her approach to source material, combining photographs, clippings, maps, and signs to create an atlas of tensions between intimacy and collectivity, document and memory. Her most recent abstract works are rooted in specific events such as the COVID-19 pandemic and the fire at the National Museum of Brazil, addressing themes of capitalism, globalization, migration, and displacement. Key to the Warsaw exhibition are the 'TRANSpaintings,' presented within sculptural aluminum scaffolding by Nairy Baghramian. These works, inspired by media reports of recent global events, including the invasion of Ukraine, use semi-transparent, double-sided canvases to convey the brutality of these events while simultaneously suggesting an enduring, emergent light. Mehretu's practice is further contextualized by an extensive calendar showcasing her unique approach to collecting artifacts, juxtaposing fragments of public history with intensely personal items like her children's toys and collected stones, creating a vibrant, living atlas within her oeuvre. Her multilayered works capture the speed, ambiguity, and complexity of the modern world, reflecting a pervasive sense of crisis without offering simple solutions, instead inviting viewers to engage with life's inherent contradictions and tensions.

Tickets for the exhibition can be purchased through the museum's online shop. Information regarding museum or exhibition-specific admission may be found on the booking page.