With swirling marks, and fragments from maps, city grids, and weather charts, Julie Mehretu creates prints that evoke the rise and fall of civilizations. This traveling exhibition represents almost a decade of intensive engagement with printmaking and is the first show dedicated to the artist’s prints. Born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, raised in East Lansing, Michigan, and educated in Michigan, Rhode Island, and Senegal, Mehretu now lives in New York City. Her layers of imagery address the interconnectedness and entropy of modern civilizations. She focuses on "taking apart and putting back together," with each printmaking technique allowing different marks and references. Ultimately she finds in printmaking a creative process for exploration and discovery.

Excavations: The Prints of Julie Mehretu is organized by Highpoint Editions, Minneapolis. Accompanying the show at the DAC was a 44-page color catalog with plates of the prints and an essay by Siri Engberg, Curator at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis.

Funding for this exhibition at Wesleyan came from the Hoy Family Afro-American Visual Arts Fund and the Lemberg Fund.