Julie Mehretu Work Dominates Goldman Sachs HQ

Although Julie Mehretu was initially uncertain about constructing the piece, her massive “Mural” has now taken over the lobby of the Goldman Sachs building in lower Manhattan. Mehretu’s saturated abstract shapes move across the 80-foot long and 23-foot high piece that left the artist up in the air. “It took me a long time—six months or so—to decide I wanted to do this,” 39-year-old Mehretu told The New Yorker. “One reason was this wall, which is so clearly visible from outside the building…I could never make a painting this scale anywhere else.” When she was commissioned to work on the project in 2007, Goldman Sachs’ involvement in the recent international financial crisis was yet to play out. However, the Ethiopian-born artist did incorporate four layers of markings into her work, which reference financial capitalism.