Museum open at 12:00pm
Cinema is closed now
Museum open at 12:00pm
Cinema is closed now
JULIE MEHRETU:
KAIROS/HAUNTOLOGICAL VARIATIONS
20.03–30.08.2026
Julie Mehretu, detail of Ghosthymn (after the Raft), 2019–2021, ink and acrylic paint on canvas, phot. Tom Powel Imaging. Courtesy of the artist and Marian Goodman Gallery, New York © Julie MehretuWstęp wolny
Curated by
Szymon Żydek (Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw) based on an original curatorial concept by Susanne Gaensheimer and Sebastian Peter (Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf)
Julie Mehretu
Nairy Baghramian
Tacita Dean
With “Kairos / Hauntological Variations,” the work of Julie Mehretu (b. 1970, Addis Ababa), a celebrated American artist with Ethiopian and Polish roots, makes its first ever appearance in Poland. In the show’s title, the ancient Greek notion of kairos—a critical turning point—accompanies Derrida’s hauntology—a state where the present is haunted by ghosts of an unresolved past.
Mehretu’s work reimagines the legacy of American Abstract Expressionism, establishing her as one of the most influential artists of our time—making an impact in contemporary painting for more than two decades now. Her compositions draw on maps, poetry and literature, music and art history, and most prominently, press photography and sociopolitical events; these varied sources act as intellectual and compositional points of departure for her practice in painting, drawing, and experimental printmaking.
The exhibition is comprehensive, bringing pieces from different periods to Warsaw: from the analytical diagrams of the late 1990s to drawings and watercolors as well as works on paper and mylar dating to the 2000s, to the most recent, grand paintings whose dense layering acts as a seismographic record of today’s global tensions—all displayed in a way that provides deeper insight into the artist’s practice.
The way to understand who we are, what we are, and how we are right now is very abstract, confused, and uncertain, says Julie Mehretu. There’s a lot of contradictions that we are experiencing and existing within. We are living in complicated, abstract times.
Julie Mehretu
detail of Black City, 2007
Ink and Acrylic on Canvas, photo: Tim Thayer. Courtesy of the artist and Marian Goodman Gallery and carlier | gebauer, Berlin © Julie Mehretu
Among other series, “Archive Pages” (1997) are included in the show: rarely presented to the public, these works on paper attest to Mehretu’s unique, longstanding usage of source imagery. A collection of photographs, clippings, maps, and marks withdrawn from circulation through the use of xerography, it forms an atlas of tensions at work between intimacy and communality, between document and memory. This working method continues to resonate in her most recent abstract pieces, referencing major events such as the COVID-19 pandemic or the devastating fire that broke out in the National Museum of Brazil in Rio de Janeiro on the night of September 2, 2018. Disasters count among Mehretu’s recurring themes—among capitalism, globalism, migration, and displacement.
Julie Mehretu
Archive Page #1, 1997
Photo: Robert Głowacki
Julie Mehretu
Archive Page #23, 1997
Photo: Robert Głowacki
Julie Mehretu
Archive Page #33, 1997
Photo: Robert Głowacki
Julie Mehretu
Archive page no. 53, 1997
Photo: Robert Głowacki
“TRANSpaintings,” exhibited in aluminum scaffold-like sculptures (“Upright Brackets”) by Nairy Baghramian, are essential to the show in Warsaw. The series draws from mass media of recent history, including the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Translucent and double-sided, the pieces bear both the extremism of the represented events and “this other light that still can emanate, or is still possible,” as Mehretu said in 2023.
The exhibition features an expanded chronology that reflects Julie Mehretu’s ongoing practice of collecting ephemera from key events that have shaped both our contemporary world and ourselves. In her archive these historical fragments live alongside personal affects—her children’s toys, rocks from beaches across the world, and souvenirs from her travels—all serving to create a living atlas which reverberates throughout Mehretu’s work.
Julie Mehretu’s multilayered works are true to the pace, ambiguity, and complexity of life today—the condition of crisis and the ever-present feeling of danger permeate her abstractions. But instead of promising easy answers and relief, the artist encourages viewers to experience the world attentively, in all of its tensions and contradictions. It is an invitation to transcend short-lived solutions and overarching, simplified narratives.
Julie Mehretu, fot. ©Josefina Santos
Exhibition accessibility
Julie Mehretu
TRANSpaintings (MASKA)
Ink and acrylic on polyester mesh. Photo: Theo Chistelis for White Cube. Courtesy of the artist © Julie Mehretu
Julie Mehretu
Oneironaut 2, 2022–2023
Ink and Acrylic on Canvas, phot. Tom Powel Imaging. Courtesy of the artist and Marian Goodman Gallery, New York © Julie Mehretu
