Julie Mehretu: A Transcore of the Radical Imaginatory

The Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (MCA Australia) presents the first major survey in Australia and the Asia Pacific region of renowned Ethiopian American artist Julie Mehretu, for the Sydney International Art Series 2024–25 summer exhibition. 

Julie Mehretu: A Transcore of the Radical Imaginatory charts Mehretu’s continually evolving investigations into the possibilities of abstraction and its vocabulary of mark making, from her earliest works on paper, to her experimental printmaking and most recent paintings.

The MCA Australia exhibition charts an explosively experimental period in Mehretu’s art and includes more than 80 works by the artist including significant loans from public and private collections. The exhibition features 36 paintings completed by the artist between 2017 and 2024 alongside several major new painting cycles completed in 2023 and 2024. Many works are presented to the public for the first time, including Mehretu’s most recent TRANSpaintings, while over 50 works on paper from the mid 1990’s to now, offer a retrospective of the foundational role of drawing and printmaking in the artist’s practice.

Among the exhibition’s highlights are Femenine in nine (2023–2024), a cycle of exuberant black paintings inscribed with iridescent gestural marks. Named after the 1974 musical composition by Julius Eastman, they offer a visual and sonic meditation on conditions of darkness and instability that define the contemporary moment.

Also featured are the TRANSpaintings (2023–2024), seven of which are presented for the first time. Supported by the sculptures Upright Brackets by Berlin-based sculptor Nairy Baghramian, these freestanding paintings are physically and visually dynamic and propose an experience of painting as both embodied and participatory.

A new 224-page publication Julie Mehretu: A Transcore of the Radical Imaginatory published by MCA Australia to coincide with the exhibition, features a comprehensive overview of works in the exhibition, with contributions from American author and rock writer Erik Morse, Suzanne Cotter and a conversation between Mehretu, Australian artist Daniel Boyd and Jane Devery. The catalogue is available to purchase from the MCA store and online.

Julie Mehretu: A Transcore of the Radical Imaginatory is curated by Suzanne Cotter, MCA Australia Director, with Jane Devery, MCA Australia Senior Curator Exhibitions, and runs until 27 April 2025.

About the artist
Julie Mehretu was born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in 1970 and lives in New York City. In 1977, she immigrated with her family from Ethiopia to East Lansing, Michigan, US. Since graduating from the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) in the mid-1990s, where she studied painting and printmaking, Mehretu has exhibited extensively, including a major retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. In 2024, the Pinault Collection presented her exhibition Ensemble at Palazzo Grassi, Venice. Mehretu has undertaken notable commissions for the Deutsche Guggenheim Museum, Berlin, Goldman Sachs, New York, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. She recently completed a major commission for the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago, which will open in 2025.

Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (MCA Australia)
The Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (MCA Australia) presents, collects and engages with the art of our time. Guided by the principles of belonging, connection and influence, we aim to be the defining platform for contemporary art and ideas in Australia and beyond. Located on Sydney Harbour at Tallawoladah, a home to stories, art and culture for over 65,000 years, we connect the widest possible public to contemporary art through exhibitions, events, creative learning and access programs. Our evolving Collection of over 4,700 artworks is the only public collection in Australia dedicated to the work of living artists, with over a third represented by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists. As an independent, not-for-profit organisation, MCA Australia raises over 80% of its revenue each year through donations and commercial activities to deliver its artistic and engagement programs.   

Museum of Contemporary Art Australiagu wawa Cadigalmirung nura badu garrigarrang* The Museum of Contemporary Art Australia acknowledges the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation, the traditional owners of the land and waters upon which the MCA stands.

*Language translation undertaken with assistance from Professor Jakelin Troy and endorsed by local community Elders and the MCA Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Advisory Group