EP 48 // JULIE MEHRETU

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Just after hanging her latest exhibition at the Whitney, JULIE MEHRETU dials Arman from home. Growing up a child of the early 70's during the height of the Pan-African post colonial movement, Mehretu shares a lifetime of music and stories as perceptive as her art.

Painting a parallel between the ability jazz has to structurally shift music into a plane of abstraction, Mehretu's insightful ear is as fine tuned as they come. From Mavis Staples' sexy voice, Steve McQueen's brilliant filmmaking, and the feeling of real liberation Lil Nas X's video Montero inspires, the soundtrack to MEHRETU's life evokes a new type of aesthetic.

Digging into her own archeology, she describes hiding Prince pins under her lapel as a kid, living in New York City during the peak of the 90's hip hop scene, and what it's like for her to approach a blank canvas. To get into a particular mood, Julie puts early hip hop or a Sun Ra album on the turntable. Listen now to get into the mood of all of the above!

“That Pan-African postcolonial utopian moment that I was born into; the aesthetics of Ethiopian Modernism, and that moment of hope, whether it was through music, architecture, or cars there was an optimistic possibility at that time.”

THE PLAYLIST, a collection of the songs shared in the episode.

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