Palimpsest

It's hard to describe Julie Mehretu's work to people, but I think my art teacher got it today when she said "it's like someone's blueprints were rolled together then exploded."

A palimpsest is a page that has been scraped off and used again.  A number of historical documents have been unearthed behind someone else's scribblings (I remember watching some Discovery Channel thing about the Archimedes Palimpsest.  He had the foundations of integral calculus some 2000 years before Newton, but some monk thought that the weekly parish newsletter was more important).  

Not too long ago, I saw ICE perform Palimpsest for chamber ensemble by Iannis Xenakis. Over the course of the piece, seemingly incongruous rhythmic materials are layered, one on top of another, fading and reappearing as the work goes on.  At times, the piano soloist must play 4 distinct tempi simultaneously.  

The impression I get from Mehretu's work is similar, but what I like most about her (and Xenakis, actually), is the combination of both methodical processes and an improvisatory sort of expressionism - the formal and the organic.  It's a sensory overload at first, and it's work that I could stare at for hours without discovering all of its dimensions (kind of like one of my other favorite artists).