When the Obama Presidential Center opens this summer on the South Side of Chicago, a major design element will come from an artist who grew up in East Lansing.
Julie Mehretu was born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in 1970. When her father got a faculty position at Michigan State University in 1977, the family moved to East Lansing.
She says growing up in Michigan was formative as a budding artist. They often visited both Detroit and Chicago.
“My experience, in terms of growing up between those two urban centers, that were both focuses of my father’s work at different times were important,” Mehretu said. “Just because culturally, that’s where we would go to see art, listen to music, go out to eat, things like that or those kind of urban experiences. That was where we would go.”
The abstract painter is now based in New York City, and her large-scale works have been displayed all over the world.
When the Obama White House hosted a reception for artists, Mehretu met then-First Lady Michelle Obama. After work on a presidential library began, project curator Virginia Shore reached out to Mehretu with the idea of creating an enormous window for the building. Tickled by the idea, Mehretu faced a conundrum: she had never worked with glass.
“I thought, yeah, that could be something, but can you also share with me other possibilities? Are there other places that I could maybe make a proposal for?” Mehretu said.
"She showed me a couple other possibilities, and those were more like what I normally do, which are large scale paintings sometimes, and somehow, the idea of doing the glass really stayed, and she really encouraged it, which I’m really grateful for.”
Installed last year, the window stands 83 feet high and 25 feet wide. The 35 painted glass panels adorn the north façade of the Obama Center, and while it’s visible from the outside, unpainted sections offer glimpses of the Chicago skyline from the inside.
In a promotional video, former President Barack Obama has high praise for Mehretu’s design.
“Your concept is on point, and I think that it will end up being one of the most important aspects of this center and will end up being an iconic contribution to the South side and the city of Chicago. So, it’s exciting," he said.
When it came time to name the piece, Mehretu says she wanted something that would resonate with world events. She considered the daily cycle of sunrise and sunset. The name she settled on, "Uprising of the Sun," reflects the future she thinks that cycle can produce.
"But also what’s possible in that uprising, and how as sure as the sun rises, we continue on this project, and there’s this, that’s a space that we constantly kind of occupy in an effort to evolve or shift.”
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While she has a global reputation as an artist, Julie Mehretu agrees that her work at the Obama Center has the potential to be her most notable creation.
"With the legacy of the president, President Obama, and Michelle Obama and her legacy. These are all embedded in this project, and so for me, it’s a great honor to be alongside this, and I think, yeah, in many ways, it’s probably one of the most important pieces I will have the opportunity to make," Mehretu said.
The Obama Presidential Center is scheduled to open to the public in June.
UPCOMING ARTS EVENTS:
Community theatre in Lansing returns for the new year starting Thursday, January 15. Riverwalk Theatre opens "12 Incompetent Jurors," a comedy inspired by "12 Angry Men," for a run of eight performances this weekend and next. Showtimes are 7 p.m. Thursdays, 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, and 2 p.m. Sundays.
The MSU College of Music has a program Thursday featuring saxophonist Joseph Lulloff. It includes the world premiere of "Write Your Own Way" by MSU student composer Parker Fritz. That’s at 7:30 p.m. in the Music Building’s Cook Recital Hall.
The Sistrum Chorus has concerts entitled "Music For Every Body" this weekend, focused on our relationship with our bodies and identities. The performances are Friday at 7 p.m. and Saturday at 3 p.m. at the Presbyterian Church of Okemos.
