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Image of Julie Mehretu at work; courtesy the artist and Marian Goodman Gallery; photo: Tom Powel Imaging, Inc.

Artist Talk

Julie Mehretu

Thursday, Sept 14, 2017

6:30 p.m.

HOWL, eon (I, II) (2017), examines the complex legacy of nineteenth-century westward expansion, including the Bay Area’s deeply embedded histories of colonialism, capitalism, class conflict, social protest, and technological innovation. The work’s layered tangles of abstract marks and erasures reflect a landscape that is continually reshaped by physical movement and struggle, reminding us of the conjoined genealogies of chaos, exploitation, and hope in the making of the American West. This spectacular new site-specific work, created for the soaring Evelyn and Walter Haas, Jr. Atrium, is part of SFMOMA’s new art commissioning program.

Join us this fall for a conversation between the artist and Gary Garrels, Elise S. Haas Senior Curator of Painting and Sculpture, about this large-scale commission, on view starting September 2, 2017.