Introducing: The first in a biennial collaboration with artist Julie Mehretu

In the summer of 2023, we were introduced by gallerist Jeanne Greenberg Rohatyn of Salon 94 to one of our heroes: the artist Julie Mehretu. Together, we had a breathless conversation about possibility, community building, stewardship, and generosity; about wanting more ways to connect, explore, communicate, and uncover universal forms of making.

We wanted to see what would happen if Julie explored working in another medium altogether—what language wine would speak, how this place and that vintage would look through her particular lens. We decided to invite two of her closest friends and collaborators, artists Paul Pfeiffer and Jessica Rankin, who work in different media, to see how they all found their way. And we made a covenant: should we make something truly emotionally transparent, complete, architecturally intricate, and energetically resolved, none of us would profit from it. We would use the free-flowing energy and turn it into usable power by donating all proceeds to a single beneficiary—Denniston Hill—an artist residency founded by Mehretu, Pfeiffer, Rankin, and historian and contributing writer Lawrence Chua.

The artists joined Antica Terra founder and winemaker, Maggie Harrison in blending barrel samples of Antica Terra’s 2022 pinot noir. The result was not only a singular group of wines, but a cross-disciplinary artwork. Each participant—Mehretu, Pfeiffer and Rankin—developed their own cuvée and contributed original works to create a limited-edition collector’s set.

Mehretu created a drypoint engraving that shows the dense, layered and linear abstraction she has been known for in her paintings.

Pfeiffer created two new lenticulars that reference the scale of his 1999 installation Fragment of a Crucifixion (After Francis Bacon).

For her work, Rankin made rubbings of trees and branches gnawed by the beavers who live on the Denniston Hill campus in the southern Catskill Mountains. She then transferred the rubbings into a single-color lithograph to which she added stitching of an abstracted constellation of stars that can be seen from Denniston Hill’s front porch.

Reimagining the Surrealist parlor game as an exercise in métissage, this collector’s set is meticulously crafted in ode to Duchamp’s Museum in a Box and Aspen magazine, reflecting the complex blending of style and terroir at the heart of both winemaking and collaborative creation.

Within it, Julie Mehretu, Paul Pfeiffer, and Jessica Rankin contribute original artworks alongside three bespoke wines they personally blended with Maggie Harrison. Each bottle label features an original drawing by the artists, which together form a complete exquisite corpse composition. The set also includes SWERVE, a magazine curated by Lawrence Chua.

Vol 1. SWERVE: Exquisite Corpse is an edition of 150.

The gesture does not, cannot, end in the glass. With this release, we offer support to Denniston Hill, a place committed to generative entanglement and to the belief that creative practice can be a form of liberation. Their work echoes our own longing for a world made more whole by the collision of voices, disciplines, and ideas.  100% of profits earned from Vol 1. SWERVE: Exquisite Corpse will be donated to Denniston Hill.

This edition will be offered to collectors starting in November. If you wish to be considered for early access to Exquisite Corpse, we invite you to note your interest below.