Senior Thesis 'The Space That 'Mural' Makes' Examines Controversial Art Piece In The Lobby Of Goldman Sachs Headquarters

Upper West Side NY

16 May, 2022

3:54 PM

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By Rainier Harris, Columbia Daily Spectator • May 16, 2022, 6:04 PM The department of art history and archaeology held its spring 2022 Senior Thesis Symposium last month. There, Lilly Jean Cao, CC '22, presented her thesis on a controversial mural in the Goldman Sachs lobby. Cao is graduating this year with a degree in visual arts and history and theory of architecture. Her art history thesis, titled "The Space that 'Mural' Makes: Julie Mehretu and Goldman Sachs," centers on a mural by artist Julie Mehretu located in the lobby of the Goldman Sachs headquarters in Battery Park. At 23-by-80 feet, the mural is clearly visible to the public through the lobby's large glass walls. "It's not so often that a painting has a chance to be public art," Mehretu said to The New Yorker about her reasoning for creating a piece for the notorious financial institution. "I was thinking about that, and about how I could never make a painting on this scale anywhere else" When Cao took Contemporary Art in Africa in her junior year, she read an essay for the class that had a brief section criticizing Mehretu, whom Cao was a fan of when she entered the class. She felt there were few pieces intensely studying the mural and decided to study it herself after feeling it deserved more attention. According to Cao, Mehretu made the abstract "Mural" as "a spatial history of global capitalism." With this in mind, Cao's thesis puts the piece in perspective by looking at "the contradictions the work purports to be about." Mehretu's piece claims to be about global capitalism but "is in the lobby of a financial services bank building." Cao divided the thesis into two sections. The first argues that Mehretu conducts an "oblique critique of the Goldman Sachs building" using various techniques, such as embedding buildings central to the history of capitalism in the mural and using abstraction to add to that critique. In the second section, Cao argues that the mural's placement in a corporate space inherently prevents the public from reading it critically. "I argue that that happens discursively; because of the expectation of a corporate commission, people don't expect it to be a critical work," Cao said. She furthers this argument, saying its placement adds to this effect. "The way it's framed architecturally—there's furniture in the building, but it's faced away from the mural and it's very much framed as a decorative piece, rather than something to be interpreted or contemplated." The thesis touches on themes like the corporate patronage of art and strategies artists can use within their commissioned work to critique their patrons. While at Columbia, Cao was the editor in chief of the Columbia Undergraduate Journal of Art History, and was also involved in the Asian Creative Collection; Ratrock Magazine, Columbia's undergraduate arts magazine; the Architecture Society; and the Journal of Art Criticism. She also interned at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. One of her favorite classes while at Columbia was Columbia Summer in Greece: Athens Curatorial Project, which she participated in while studying abroad in Athens, Greece during the summer after her first year. She learned about modern Greek history, contemporary art, and curation. At the end, the class curated its own exhibit. After graduation, Cao will work at Marianne Boesky Gallery in Manhattan as a gallery assistant. She said she hopes to work there for a year before pursuing a Ph.D. in art history. Cao's thesis was presented alongside several other theses: Noah Seeman's "The Evil of Banality: Gerhard Richter's 'Atlas,'" Ricardo Mercado's "The Landscapes of José María Velasco and the Construction of the Mexican Nation," and Kaleigh McCormick's "The Construction of Femininity and Power in Barcelona: Bernat Martoreil's Altarpiece of Saint Eulalia and the Reign of Maria of Castile." Staff Writer Rainier Harris can be contacted at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @harris_rainier. Founded in 1877, the Columbia Daily Spectator is the independent undergraduate newspaper of Columbia University, serving thousands of readers in Morningside Heights, West Harlem, and beyond. Read more at columbiaspectator.com and donate here.