Mark Rothko, the American abstract painter that so many people love and so many people hate. He’s the epitome of “But I could’ve done that!”, with big bold colours on massive canvases. But I’ll be honest, I’ve always really liked his work, I liked the story around them, and I liked the cultural mythology behind his work, where you hear tales of art lovers visiting galleries and being moved to tears by how powerful his work is.
This idea of shortcutting message and using just medium to get to an emotion is like cocaine for me, especially as someone with an interest in the philosophy of aestheticism. The more I read about Rothko as I learnt art years and years back, the more I solidified this daydream about visiting a museum, seeing Orange and Yellow (1956) and sobbing in front of someone with a beret.
So, as part of ✓ Project Bucket List, I decided I’d go and see one, just any one would do, and so I did. On a visit to London, we went to the Tate Modern museum after I’d found that they had an entire room dedicated to Rothko! We walked around the entire place and I was blown away by such an amazing collection of art, discovering new names that I went away and looked into, and finding pieces from artists that I vaguely recognised.
As we made our way around the rooms, I kept expecting the big blocks of deep dark colours to spring out as me as we entered the Rothko Room. However, what I failed to when looking at the website, was read the large header at the top of the page proudly claiming “This is a past display“.
So we went all the way to the Tate Modern Museum and all we got was this lifechanging experience seeing amazing art and discovering new things about the world?! Learn the read the large print folks, ugh.
So anyway, fast-forward, my girlfriend and I fly to America for business and for fun.
One day while she’s busy at a studio, I nip out to LACMA, or Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and I’ve checked all the words on the website, it looks like they definitely have a Rothko. I park up in my flash rental and get told that because they’re only open until 1pm today (some awards ceremony), I get free admission, but parking is still like a rip off amount of dollars.
LACMA is an amazing space, I walked inside and asked one of the staff if he knew where the Rothko was and he pointed me right upstairs to the top floor where they kept all the modern art. I walked around all these different rooms filled with art by Pollock and Picasso, (I very much liked that they painted him as a chauvinist piece of shit, even though I do like his art) Monet, Mondrian, Magritte (Treachery of images is one of my favourites) and Miró. Lots of artists seem to have surnames beginning with the letter M, huh?
Then, finally, in the penultimate room, I rounded a corner and there it stood, in all it’s majesty. “White Center”
I approached it, expecting to feel something from the painting itself, and as I stepped nearer and nearer, I felt like I was coming to the end of a journey. I’d been to 4 or 5 different art museums at this point, some specifically for Rothko, some where I’d just kept an eye out for him, and here I was, taking the last few physical steps before standing right before one.
I stood looking up at this great, big canvas (which was smaller than I expected), and felt so grayishly underwhelmed with the painting itself. Sure, the technique is there and the colours meshed well and all the usual things you can hear from smarter people than I – but despite feeling “meh” at the painting, I felt emotion welling up, and I felt that uncomfortable feeling you get just behind your eyes as they’re about to go wet.
I held back a tear, it didn’t last long, but I hold a really poignant view of that moment. I did get a strong emotional reaction from a Rothko, but it wasn’t the Rothko itself, it was the sense of completion of having finally done something I’d idolised and imaged for 7 years at that point. I guess maybe that means it was the Rothko itself? I don’t know, but I think the feeling I felt is the far distant cousin of the feeling a runner gets when they complete a marathon, or when someone reaches the end of a good book series.
If there is an artist you like, big or small, make the trip to go to the place where you can see their work. Hell, make a trip to go to any art museum. Since seeing LACMA I’ve been to the Louvre and Musée d’Orsay in Paris and seen magnificent work that towered feet above anything that LACMA would have held. I’ve seen some of the most famous art in the world and had my horizons expanded in such a grand way that I wouldn’t have possibly felt having seen the work in art books or on the internet.
Not only that, most of these museums have information that isn’t easily understood or available without sitting in the room with the pieces. Going through a gallery that has been carefully tailored to create an experience or impart a sentiment is an unparalleled way to understand art. If you have a local art place to you, most places do, Google yours, I suggest you go. Most will display art from local or independent artists, and often you can time visits with special events where the artist will be involved somehow.
I fundamentally believe that everybody is capable of being interested in art, but that the study of the field is gatekept as this high class, bohemian, rich man’s club. Nah mate. Art rewards openness, if you go to a gallery with an openness to learn or feel something, you’ll experience it in time. Don’t go in thinking “bah my 5 year old could knock this out in an afternoon” – read the little bit of text next to the painting and see what Basquiat was up to and why.
Oh, and ask genuine questions if you want to know, a lot of the staff or volunteers are there because they love art. Or I guess they might be there because they were cursed to look after a specific painting because it hides their soul deep within the brushstrokes and are kept within 15 foot of it at all times by a mean witch who works for the devil. But it’s probably the first one.