Entropia (review)

Painter and printmaker Julie Mehretu finds inspiration for her imagery in the complex infrastructure of the constructed world. Entropia (review) typifies Mehretu's long-standing interest in using architectural language to express ideas of power, particularly how power is conveyed in public spaces. Visually complex, her print combines decontextualized elements of maps, diagrams, plans, and architectural drawings of socially-charged spaces--streets, plazas, airports, government buildings, schools, parks--with Mehretu's personal language of signs and symbols. She refers to these layered, multidimensional compositions as "psycho-geographic" abstractions, essentially hybrids of various urban structures, settings, and identities that call to mind multicultural and global concerns of contemporary society, especially the cultural and political role of power.