“His paintings speak a universal language that needs no explanation”

2023-10-20 06:15:08
Christopher Rothko and Suzanne Pagé, during the hanging of the “Mark Rothko” exhibition, at the Louis Vuitton Foundation, in Paris, October 13, 2023. LOUIS VUITTON FOUNDATION/MARIE LEVI

Suzanne Pagé, art historian, curator and artistic director of the Louis Vuitton Foundation, had already mounted an exhibition around the work of Mark Rothko in 1999, when she worked at the Museum of Modern Art of the City of Paris. For the new Parisian retrospective which will be held until April 2, 2024, she joined forces with the painter’s son, Christopher Rothko, doctor of psychology. The two commissioners reconsider their choices.

There have already been Mark Rothko exhibitions in Paris. How does this one differ from the others?

Suzanne Pagé: We have the testimony of the art critic Dora Vallier on the first, in 1962 [au Musée d’art moderne de la Ville de Paris]. There were forty-four paintings taken from a MoMA exhibition. It was raining, it was even snowing, and it was hanging in the basement of the museum, the worst place. The weather was so terrible that it had to be closed and Dora Vallier was one of the few who saw it. That of 1972 [au Musée national d’art moderne] poses a problem to me: the paintings had been chosen by the Marlborough gallery in New York, which opposed Rothko’s family after his death. A lengthy trial ensued, which Rothko’s children ultimately won. But, despite the respect I have for the conservative of the time [Jean Leymarie], it was clearly an exhibition of a commercial nature. The one I curated, in 1999, at the Musée d’art moderne de la Ville de Paris, came from the National Gallery in Washington, and passed through the Guggenheim in New York before landing with us. Now we only had a third of the paintings in the original exhibition, even though Nicholas Serota, who headed the Tate [à Londres]had lent me, in addition, some of the works…

Christopher Rothko : I saw this exhibition in New York then the one in Paris. They were indeed very different, but it was on this occasion that I met Suzanne.

S. P. : This time again, it was snowing on the day of the opening, but people still lined up to get in. The critical reception was remarkable and I think that touched Christopher. That, and the fact that we respected his father’s posthumous requests about the color of the walls, the lighting and the height at which we hung his works, subjects to which he was very sensitive. This is more or less what we do at the Louis Vuitton Foundation.

C. R. : I didn’t want this exhibition to be limited to works from the National Gallery in Washington, the Tate or my family. So I looked for paintings that Europeans, and even most Americans, didn’t know. In addition to private collections, there are some in tiny museums all over the United States, in cities many have never even heard of. Some hadn’t been out for decades.

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