Julie Mehretu's exhibition in Düsseldorf features BMW Art Car

Julie Mehretu's largest German survey opens at K21 Düsseldorf with 100 works, including the BMW Art Car 20 maquette from 2024.

The exhibition “KAIROS / Hauntological Variations” at K21 in Düsseldorf stands as one of Germany’s major cultural events of 2025. Marking Julie Mehretu’s first institutional solo show in the country in over fifteen years, it also represents the most comprehensive survey of her work ever shown in Germany. Nearly 100 works trace the evolution of her artistic language, from the urban line drawings of the 1990s to her most recent large-scale abstract compositions infused with political and social resonance.

The exhibition’s title draws on two powerful ideas: “kairos”, the Greek term for a decisive moment, and “hauntology”, a philosophical concept introduced by Jacques Derrida to describe the lingering presence of the past in the present. Few artists have made this spectral layering so visible. Mehretu’s works are palimpsests: dense with architectural plans, blurred media images, gestures of airbrush and ink, and cryptic marks reminiscent of graffiti, calligraphy, or cave drawings. These layered compositions become a terrain where destruction and hope, protest and structure, history and utopia collide.

A highlight of the show is the 20th BMW Art Car, which Mehretu designed in 2024. Instead of painting directly on the body, she used a custom foil wrap featuring elements from her painting “Everywhen”. The result is not a static artwork but a performative sculpture, one that raced in the 24 Hours of Le Mans. This marks the first time a BMW Art Car has been conceived as a moving vessel of art rather than a museum piece.

The exhibition includes the documentary “Palimpsest”, offering a glimpse into Mehretu’s studio practice, as well as the video work “Promises: Through Congress” by director Trevor Tweeten. This latter piece, created in collaboration with Mehretu, is based on the ambient jazz album “Promises” by Floating Points and Pharoah Sanders. Jazz pianist Jason Moran also contributes a musical response to Mehretu’s visual language, enriching the exhibition with a sonic layer.

Central to understanding Mehretu’s methods is her use of source material. For the first time, her personal archive is on display: annotated photos, miniature sketches, and early works on paper illustrate how ideas morph into monumental canvases. Architecture plays a crucial role, not as background, but as symbol of power and transformation. Her biography—migration from Ethiopia to the U.S., studies in Senegal and New York, and residencies in Berlin—imprints itself onto a visual language that defies geography but channels historical consciousness.

Curators Susanne Gaensheimer and Sebastian Peter have crafted an exhibition that presents Mehretu not only as a painter of global turmoil but as an inventor of new visual grammars. “KAIROS / Hauntological Variations” is more than a retrospective—it is an exploration of time, memory, and the capacity for visual transformation.

Source: bmwgroup.com