Unsettling the City: Julie Mehretu’s “Epigraph, Damascus” at the Saint Louis Art Museum

Exhibit dates: November 6, 2026, through August 15, 2027
Exhibit location: Gallery 235 and Sidney S. and Sadie M. Cohen Gallery 234
Cost: Free
Julie Mehretu’s large-scale print Epigraph, Damascus upends the representational possibilities of a city view, transforming the printed surface in a layered space of mark making.  

This exhibition will create space for close looking and consideration of this monumental work and the experimental processes used to make it. It will further contextualize Mehretu’s active engagement with the description and meaning of place through a selection of other works depicting cities.    

In darkness and light, growth and decline, cities have long drawn artists’ and viewers’ attention in ways that expand both the techniques used to depict them and the perspectives with which they are seen. The exhibition will facilitate a deep dive into the artistic power of these works. In addition, it will propose a broader conversation around the shifting meanings of cities in visual form.  

Unsettling the City: Julie Mehretu’s “Epigraph, Damascus” is curated by Clare Kobasa, associate curator of prints, drawings, and photographs.