The title Entropvisions is in homage to my mother, the poet and art critic, Harriet Zinnes. In 1990 New Directions published a collection of her poems titled Entropisms, a word she made-up combining entropy - the tendency toward disorder - and tropism - the growth towards or away from a stimulus. Similarly, my short reviews combine entropy and tropism by suggesting growth towards a vision of art from the chaos of the art world. Through the back door, my title also pays homage to my physicist father, Irving Zinnes, whose long discussions with my mom got her thinking about entropy and tropism in the first place.
I’m
always happy when a friend has a show, and even happier when the work
is strong, and so I was quite pleased to see the mixed-media work of Eozen Agopian – who’s actually a friend of a friend – at High Noon Gallery,
up through March 12. Agopian’s work takes a while to see. On first
entering the gallery all the pieces blended into one large installation
of color and texture, and I found it hard to focus. But looking longer
and more slowly offered visual rewards, for the spaces
opened up and the colors sang as they found their locations and light
amidst the cloth, needlepoint, paint and other media. Remembered or
imagined architecture seemed to be suggested, or maybe simply the joy
and fascination of making disparate materials flow together. Knowing
Eozen is of Armenian descent, was born in Greece, and frequently worked
in needlepoint as a child, adds another layer of possible readings, as
these constructions, with their heavy use of needle and thread, grew out
of, continued and also rejected her traditional cultural heritage.