Julie Mehretu has created a second extraordinary, tour-de-force etching in collaboration with the Los Angeles-based artists’ workshop, Gemini G.E.L. Titled Myriads, Only By Dark, the monumental four-panel etching will be on view February 12 through March 28, 2015 at Gemini G.E.L. at Joni Moisant Weyl.
Following the creative and critical success of her first Gemini project, Auguries (2010), Mehretu returned to the Gemini workshop to collaborate once again with Master Printer Case Hudson. Auguries is a 12-panel composition measuring 7 by 15 feet, and it seemed unimaginable that it could be equaled or surpassed. And yet, with Myriads, Only By Dark, the artist has done it, challenging the technical and visual limits of both herself and the workshop.
The four panels comprising Myriads, Only By Dark each measure 81 1/4 x 44 1/4 inches, and each have visible plate embossments that establish 3 sections, determined by the size of the copper plates. The project began when press-bed limitations established this visual device, and, in fact, the original concept was that 3 separate sheets of paper would abut, the approach used with Auguries. During the proofing session, however, the workshop acquired a larger press where no divisions would have been necessary. Nevertheless, Mehretu elected to maintain the aesthetic of the division, with thin white embossments that divide the print into thirds and evoke the kind of folds that one would make to an oversized map.
