Julie Mehretu, Easy Dark (2007). — Julie Mehretu, *Easy Dark* (2007).

Waiting and watching for the results of the U.S. election along with the rest of the world, I spent time distracting myself from doomscrolling Twitter and refreshing the New York Times election map by organizing photographs from museum and gallery visits in 2019. Among the images from my trip to the Venice Biennale with the field school last summer, I was reminded of the many abstract works we had encountered that engaged with ideas around confronting history—from artists such as Adrian Ghenie, Sean Scully, Luc Tuymans, and Julie Mehretu—and all of the conversations about how and why abstraction had come to define what was “happening” and being explored by artists, especially in the previous two to three years. Much of what we were seeing was in direct response to the Biennale theme, “May You Live In Interesting Times” and the global response to the rise of illiberalism globally, and the yet unknown impact of Trump’s presidency. I was reminded again that the most captivating works we encountered turned on the idea of what remains beyond language, beyond conventional representation, and in that space where abstract art does its best work—in that liminal domain of transformation and becoming.

That is how I have felt since the moment Trump lost the election, and especially as the spontaneous response to the result worldwide is signalling some potential for a profound paradigm shift globally. To this end, I wanted to feature Julie Mehretu’s work in particular. As an Ethiopian-American and biracial LGBTQ+ contemporary artist, Mehretu has spent much of her career utilizing abstract art in the service of social and political content, especially in terms of exploring lived space and landscapes of power in the United States. I invite you to listen and learn about Mehretu in her own words, and I hope what will remain with you is the singular importance visual artists hold in terms of capturing what may be the “psychogeography” of moments like the one we are collectively experiencing this week. Enjoy the round up this week, and remember that we are indeed living in interesting times!