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.
Don Doe at 490 Gallery
2023.1.24
What
is Don Doe saying? Contrasting the clarity of his obvious love of
paint, his unending imagination, his smart use of volumetric rhythm to
unify cubistically spliced space and form in both paint and sculpture,
the dystopian images of dismemberment, abuse, and nostalgia perplex.
Images from an idyllic 1970’s that never was morph into terrifying
demons of nightmares broken into parts, perhaps suggestions of a harsh
reality fighting to burst out of the Hollywood skeins of perfection,
or perhaps suggestions of innocence lost, a reminder that America’s
myths are just that: myths. Or perhaps the gruesome sex scenes, where
limbs are torn from one body and spliced on to another, are some kind of
sadomasochistic destruction, or Doe mocking how seriously we take
ourselves. Are the yin/yang transformations of pretty heads merging and
morphing into their ugly counterparts a statement of reality,
nightmares, or simply the fascinating play of an artist’s fertile
imagination, constant invention and constant desire to cause
unsettlement? That’s for you to decide. The current Don Doe exhibition,
“I’ll Have What They’re Having,“ remains at 490 Gallery in Brooklyn
until Feb. 12.