haunting of places where traumatic events have taken place and serves to positively insist on the importance of remembrance.
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5.2 The Contemporary Sublime!
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A palimpsest is a page from a scroll or a book from which the text has been removed and the page reused for another document because as the materials were so expensive to produce, they were reused wherever possible. The artworks of Julie Mehretu have been described as ´suggesting the ghostly confluence of multiple realities´ and her creative process reminiscent of the 107 creation of a palimpsest due to its:
´reworking an older, unresolved canvas by removing paint and pencil markings to create a spare, haunting image´ . 108
By delving into the domain of the departed, she is described as producing a
´psychogeographic landscape´ through extensively layered imagery that 109 create the illusion of a unique, personal exploration of the past, present and potential future. Psychogeography is a playful domain of geography that studies the specific effect of the geographical environment on the behaviour and emotions of individuals, such as transposing maps of two different regions (consulting a map of central London whilst wandering through the Harz region of Germany). 110
Figure 12: Mehretu, Palimpsest (2006)
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Mehretu´s artwork in figure 12 is a signatory work of urban Landscape in ink and acrylic, that seems to explode from the confines of the picture frame. The surface in reminiscent of the off-white colour of manuscript, with the simplicity of the ink lines recalling architectural structures from throughout time. A city can be seen emerging from the imagination of a medieval scholar, recorded as a vision for the future on an ancient manuscript, layered over time and updated as a palimpsest. This artwork transmits the authenticity that it has emerged from the past and offers a glimpse into the future. Young (2006) describes how:
´a city is constantly in flux. Its boundaries mutate as it expands and contracts; buildings are demolished or decay and then are rebuilt or replaced. History lingers, with modern development abutting older neighbourhoods or the damage inflicted by natural and man-made disasters- earthquakes, hurricanes, war- remaining as evidence of
the past alongside fresh growth. An archaeologist might excavate the traces of bygone times, uncovering relics and customs of past communities in the strata of sediment that settle amid the new. City dwellers, on the other hand, must live in a landscape of temporal shifts, routinely manoeuvring through them as they go about their daily lives. In so doing, they create a unique, personal negotiation of past, present and future.´ 111
The resultant artwork can be described as an expression of the contemporary sublime, with the layering and partial unveiling of information seductively inviting the viewer to connect with a representation of contemporary urban landscape. It is as if from the ruins of the recent past a sublime vision of the future emerges from the remains. The vision, energy and dedication of the artist is inspirational and I am in awe of the resultant painting, that metaphorically jumps off of the wall and demands the viewer to pay attention and to connect with the artwork.
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Mehretu´s paintings have been described as perfect metaphors for the increasingly intricate and interlinked reality of the contemporary age. The 112 multidisciplinary source materials for the paintings represent the interconnectedness and contemporary complexities of the globalised present.
Visual reference is made of the importance of a variety of subject matter from the realms of the arts and the sciences to the creative process. The extreme diversity of source material results in the juxtaposition of imagery from all disciplines which could be said to result in the ultimate expression of searching for the universal in the limitless collective of source material. As a direct
´the structure of Mehretu's work has called to mind swarms, crossroads, grids, nests, webs, whirlwinds, systems of motion, water currents, a tsunami, a gust of wind; the compositional energy of her work is described with a range of not-quite dialectical dynamic pairings such as ascent/descent, destruction/regeneration and deflation/conflation.´ 113
The central concept to this observation is that the energy is in the contradiction.
The dynamic interplay between the harmoniously similar phenomena such as the movement of water and the development of weather patterns visually contradicts the presence of unified opposites such as explosions and implosions of military devices, or the building of modern structures with the
Figure 13: Mehretu, Landscape allegories (2004)
Eleey, P. (2006), online reference.
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destruction of ancient monuments, which ultimately serve to energise the artwork through a process of mutual negation.
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Crossing the boundaries of imagery could be said to create a blur of chaos, but the artist skilfully manipulates the resultant artwork to create an overwhelming image of harmony within apparent discord. Mehretu´s series of Landscape allegories of which figure 13 is an example, have clear links to the Landscape tradition, where layers of geographical information can be perceived, such as a mountain not dissimilar to the picture of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in figure 7 by Joseph Wright discussed in the first chapter. Liminal zones such as costal cities cutting diagonally from top left to bottom right can be detected, followed by agricultural images in the bottom left hand corner. Explosions, rays of light and ropes seem to be detonated from the centre, and are surrounded in cloud formations and swirling weather patterns reminiscent of Leonardo´s catastrophic depictions of the deluge. Mehretu´s dramatically swooping vectors and mark making resembling graphs and statistical analysis have a baroque complexity imagining the digital dynamics of the contemporary age.
Recognisable marks of buildings, maps and coastlines playfully drift in and out of sight like ghosts in a haunted house, as if teasing the viewer. Whilst capturing a the moment of a global crisis, an explosion fills the frame and the moment of recognition is questioned amongst the debris and confusion.
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Anthropological space has been described by Auge (2008) as being geometric points of intersection denoting the established routes between one place and another, tracing the paths of movement inscribed in time. The complexity of these trajectories follow continuity throughout time, and in the contemporary
domain embrace internal as well as external space. When walking in an ancient ruin, a visitor can connect on their mobile phone to the history of the site whilst sending realtime documentation of their visit around the world to their followers on social media. The individual is empowered with an instant multidimensional view of place, that could enhance the connection with place, but often has the result of encouraging superficial engagement by distancing and diluting the focus of the visitor, blurring and erasing the significance of the moment to become the expression of the everyday everywhere. The consumers of contemporary space result in the functional creation of a backdrop to the expression of the inner place of the individual, rather than an expression of the profundity of place.
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Mehretu´s marks hover like clouds of dust whilst commenting on aggressive acts of destruction interpreted through the media as military unbuilding of the city rather than destructive acts of individual and cultural loss. Dillon (2011) describes how borders and frontiers are interpreted as fragmented and elastic rather than stable and determined:
´Distinctions between the ´inside´and the ´outside´ are undermined and unmarked, like the forgotten fallen soldiers on a battlefield. In the realm of ´contemporary urban warfare, ´the city is constantly redrawn and reimagined like one of Mehretu´s energetically ramifying paintings.´ 114
The accretion of images and motifs is a process of erasure, stripping back to the essential forms and resulting in abstraction consisting in a grey indeterminacy remnant of a haunting melancholy remembering destruction and
Dillion, Eds. (2011), p210.
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decay. The haunting and nondescript greyness of cobwebs, dust, ghosts and memories.
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Mehretu is quoted as questioning:
´How can abstraction really articulate something that is happening?
When you make a picture of a condition, how can it make sense of that condition?’ 115
Therefore, despite first impressions to the contrary, the artist is stating that her paintings are not abstract, but firmly rooted in real information about actual events, places and phenomenas. There is nothing vague or subjective about her work, quite to the contrary! She carefully guides the viewer that her work can be interpreted as a:
´picture that appears one way from a distance - almost like looking a cosmology, city, or universe from afar - but when you approach the work, the overall image shatters into numerous other pictures, stories and events´ . 116
She is firmly rooting her creative process and resultant artworks in the real, researched contemporary Landscape. Allen (2007) describes how her method of creation resembles the ghostly confluence of multiple realities whereby the construction:
´is like a series of erasures, each eradicating the last. Seen in this way, however, history is still not entirely not rubbed out. Rather it is re-inscribed. Erasure operates not as a destructive but as a
The animation of the creative process breathes life into the paintings to reveal a definite kinetic movement that transcends and resists containment within the picture frame.