The Mehretu Effect: How One Ethiopian-American Painter Is Rewriting the Rules of Power, Value, and Legacy in Global Art
Reading Time: 11 minutesBeyond the record-breaking auction prices and blockbuster museum surveys, Julie Mehretu is doing something far more consequential — channelling her status as the highest-selling African-born artist into pan-continental creative infrastructure, a monumental commission at the Obama Presidential Center, and a sustained argument that abstraction remains the most radical political language painting has to offer.