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<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\nRC 1<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Critics of Goldman Sachs love to say the investment bank highlights the failures of everything from capitalism and neoliberalism to democracy and socialism. Millions of words have been written depicting Goldman as the central villain of the Great Recession, yet little has been said about their most egregious sin: their lobby art. In 2010, Goldman Sachs paid $5 million for a custom-made Julie Meheretu mural for their New York headquarters. Expectations are low for corporate lobby art, yet Meheretu\u2019s giant painting is remarkably ugly\u2014 so ugly that it helps us sift through a decade of Goldman criticisms and get to the heart of what is wrong with the elites of our country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Julie Mehretu\u2019s \u201cThe Mural\u201d is an abstract series of layered collages the size of a tennis court. Some layers are colorful swirls, others are quick black dash marks. At first glance one is struck by the chaos of the various shapes and colors. No pattern or structure reveals itself. Yet a longer look reveals a sublayer depicting architectural drawings of famous financial facades, including the New York Stock Exchange, The New Orleans Cotton Exchange, and even a market gate from the ancient Greek city of Miletus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What are we to make of this? Meheretu herself confirms our suspicion that there is no overarching structure to the piece. \u201cFrom the way the whole painting was structured from the beginning there was no part that was completely determined ever. It was always like the beginning lines and the next shapes. So, it was always this additive process,\u201d she said in an Art 21 episode.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Does all art need a strict and coherent structure? Of course not. Yet consider Mehretu\u2019s mural in juxtaposition with Jackson Pollock\u2019s drip paintings. Both are large, abstract, and improvisational. Pollock painted by moving the canvas to the floor and dripping paint down, making the act of painting more akin to dance. Meheretu made her piece on a computer and then had a team of assistants actually paint it on the wall. Pollock\u2019s jazz-inspired swirls and textures evoke raw emotion unfiltered. They invite us to look at the painting as a painting, and not for some further content. If there are any defenders of the Goldman mural, they\u2019re probably hiding behind similar arguments and offering platitudes appealing to the idea of expression for the sake of expression: that the painting justifies itself simply by existing. However, Meheretu does not allow for this easy out. Unlike Pollock, she includes something more than paint: the facades of famous financial buildings, by which she implies artistic argument, content outside of form.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So, what is the painting trying to say? Nothing. The glimmers of old-world beauty demand to be accounted for, and yet because there is no coherent structure to the piece, we can find no true justification for their inclusion, other than that they reference who paid for the painting. Again, Mehretu\u2019s own words confirm what is immediately visible: \u201cI think there\u2019s a lot of meaning in the painting, but I would never want to articulate a direct statement. I think maybe that\u2019s a big reason I work with abstractions so that you can\u2019t necessarily pinpoint a specific narrative.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n