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"The character of the everyday has always been repetitive and veiled by obsession and fear," wrote Henri Lefebvre in 1987. Drawing on his mid-twentieth century Critique of Everyday Life, a monumental contribution to social thought, "The Everyday and Everydayness" takes seriously the everyday as a structure imposed upon all of life in the context of the "modern."

 

At a moment of enforced reflection on the everyday, internationally renowned contemporary artist Julie Mehretu re-examines and responds to Lefebvre's text, bringing to bear on it her own longstanding fascination with questions of time, space and place. Mehretu's mastery in interrogating these concepts collides with Lefebvre's work in surprising ways that vindicate and invigorate this radical, rich and prescient text in the present.

 

The Two Works series engages with the visual artwork’s potential for productive encounter with text, and its participation in regimes of thought and communication beyond the visual.