Julie Mehretu Kairos/Spiritological Variations

A survey of Julie Mehretu, an American artist born in Ethiopia in 1970 and one of the most important painters working today. The Museum of Modern Art gathers work spanning more than two decades, from analytical diagrams of the late 1990s to recent large-format canvases. On view from 20 March to 30 August 2026.

Muzeum Sztuki Nowoczesnej on the exhibition:

Kairos / Spiritological Variations is an exhibition of works by Julie Mehretu, an American artist of Polish descent, born in Ethiopia in 1970. The exhibition title combines the ancient Greek concept of kairos - a critical turning point - with Jacques Derrida’s hauntology, in which the present is haunted by specters of an unresolved past.

Expanding the legacy of American abstract expressionism, Mehretu has become one of the most important artists of our time. For over two decades, her works have remained a significant reference point for contemporary painting. In them, Mehretu references cartography, poetry and literature, art history and music, media images, as well as political and social events. This diverse source material provides starting points for paintings, drawings, and experiments with traditional printmaking techniques.

The exhibition invites a close look at the artist’s practice. It gathers works from various stages of Mehretu’s career: from analytical diagrams of the late 1990s, through drawings and watercolors, works on paper and foil from the first decade of the 21st century, to contemporary large-format canvases where the density of layers acts like a seismographic record of contemporary tensions.

‘Understanding who we are today and where we are is an incredibly abstract, chaotic, and uncertain task. We live amidst numerous contradictions that shape us - which is why these are exceptionally complex and difficult times to grasp.’

The Archive Pages (1997) presented in the exhibition are rarely shown works on paper that offer direct insight into how the artist approaches source material. A selection of photos, clippings, maps, and signs, taken from media circulation via xerography, forms an atlas of tensions between intimacy and collectivity, document and memory. This method of working on an image remains visible also in Mehretu’s latest abstractions. The starting point for these paintings are specific events, including the COVID-19 pandemic and the tragic fire at the National Museum of Brazil in Rio de Janeiro in 2018. Alongside catastrophe and natural disaster, recurring themes in her work include capitalism, globalism, migrations, and displacements.

Key to the Warsaw exhibition are works from the TRANSpaintings series - presented in sculptural aluminum scaffolding (Upright Brackets) by Nairy Baghramian. This series of works draws from mass media reports on events of recent years, including Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The translucent, double-sided paintings convey the brutality of the referenced events. Simultaneously, as the artist says, they contain ’that other light that still emanates from somewhere, that is still possible.'

What to expect

Mehretu builds her paintings out of material she collects along the way: cartography, poetry and literature, art history and music, images pulled from media circulation, and political and social events. The show tracks how that method has shifted over time, from analytical diagrams of the late 1990s through drawings and watercolors, works on paper and foil from the first decade of the 21st century, and experiments with traditional printmaking, to the recent large-format canvases where the density of layers works like a seismographic record of contemporary tensions.

If you already know her paintings, the thing to look for is Archive Pages (1997), rarely shown works on paper. Mehretu took photos, clippings, maps and signs out of media circulation via xerography and arranged them into an atlas of tensions between intimacy and collectivity, document and memory. The same approach to image-making runs through her latest abstractions, which start from specific events including the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2018 fire at the National Museum of Brazil in Rio de Janeiro. Capitalism, globalism, migration and displacement recur throughout her work.

The Warsaw edition is built around the TRANSpaintings series: translucent, double-sided paintings shown in Nairy Baghramian’s sculptural aluminum scaffolding, Upright Brackets. The series draws on mass media reporting of recent years, including Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The paintings convey the brutality of those events and at the same time hold, as the artist puts it, ’that other light that still emanates from somewhere, that is still possible.'

Tickets, opening hours, and current details are on the Museum of Modern Art website.

Museum profile: Muzeum Sztuki Nowoczesnej.