I often hear people say that they were impressed when they saw Mark Rothko’s paintings in an art museum.
If you go to the Tate Gallery’s Seagram Murals series that fills an entire room, or the Rothko Chapel, a chapel made entirely of Rothko’s works, you’ll feel immersed in a vast wall.
But when it comes to explaining the emotions that the artwork conveys, it often hides behind art history terms like ‘abstract expressionism’ or ‘color field abstraction.’
If we consider that Abstract Expressionism refers to a movement in abstract painting that took place in the United States in the 1950s, and that Color Field Abstraction literally means abstraction using colored fields, then this is woefully inadequate to explain Rothko’s work.
What kind of emotions do Roscoe’s works evoke? And what was the artist thinking when he created them?
The answer is up to the audience to find, but I’ve met some people who can help.
These are the two children of Rothko, Kate and Christopher Rothko. We introduce the conversation we had with them on September 3rd at the Pace Gallery in Yongsan-gu, Seoul, where the exhibition ‘Congruent: Lee Ufan and Mark Rothko’ opened.
When drawing a picture
I blocked out everything but music.
The painter who loved Mozart
| When I look at my father’s work, I can feel that he didn’t just throw rectangles on the canvas, but set the relationships very precisely and precisely. I feel that this kind of detail is similar to Mozart’s music. |
| Kate Roscoe |
Kate and Christopher Rothko were 19 and 6 years old when Mark Rothko passed away, but they have been preserving, researching, and promoting Rothko’s work ever since.
Kate had to fight a lawsuit to protect her father’s work after his death, and Christopher is a Rothko expert who edits books of Rothko’s writings and curates exhibitions.
I first asked the two men about what they had seen of their father Roscoe up close.
![I met Mark Rothko’s family. [영감 한 스푼]](https://dimg.donga.com/wps/NEWS/IMAGE/2024/09/12/130038832.1.jpg "I met Mark Rothko’s family. [영감 한 스푼]")
– What kind of person was Roscoe as a father?
Kate: When I was born, my father was already 47 years old, so we didn’t spend much time together. My father was a very warm person. He was the same with his family, friends, and young writers. However, I never had a deep conversation with him about his work.
Christopher (K): I was born when my father was 60, so I often joke that I have no parents and only grandparents. I think I enjoyed the privilege of being the youngest more than my older sister (laughs).
One of them is music. My father really loves music, so we would always listen to music together and discuss who the best composers are. Thanks to that experience, I now write music criticism and sing songs professionally.
-What kind of music did your father like?
K: Mozart, Mozart, Mozart, Mozart, Schubert (laughs). My father really loved Mozart.
K: When I look at my father’s work, I can feel that he didn’t just throw rectangles on the canvas, but set the relationships very precisely and precisely. I feel that this kind of detail is similar to Mozart’s music.
(At this point, Christopher said to his sister Kate, “That’s a really good expression. I should use that later.” He then joked with me, “My brother and I often steal each other’s expressions about our father.” It was a moment where we could catch a glimpse of the siblings sharing their sincere love for their father’s art world.😊)
nice: You would imagine that Roscoe, being a 20th century modern artist, would listen to more free music, like Jackson Pollock liked jazz.
But my father I think you wanted to find something universal that transcended time, and that’s why you liked classical music.
– Even when you were actually working, were you strict and tended to block out everything around you?
K: Yes. I always worked with music on and hated being interrupted when I was immersed in my work. There were times when I completely forgot about the phone ringing in my studio and focused on drawing.
Even when I went to the studio as a child, I would sit in a corner and quietly draw my pictures. Also, until the work reached a certain stage, I would draw it without showing it to anyone and just concentrate on it alone.
Looking at my hometown of Europe,
New Yorker than American
![Mark Rothko's 'No. 16' at the 'Correspondence: Lee Ufan and Mark Rothko' exhibition at the Pace Gallery in Seoul [?] {Green, White, Yellow on Yellow} (1951) and 'No. 10/Brown, Black, Sienna on Dark Wine (Untitled)' (1963). Photograph by Kim Sang-tae, Courtesy of Pace Gallery](https://dimg.donga.com/wps/NEWS/IMAGE/2024/09/12/130038850.1.jpg)
| In some ways, my father always seemed to be looking back to his homeland, Europe. Of course, he felt somewhat comfortable in New York, a city of immigrants. So, you could say that my father is a true “New Yorker,” but he is not 100% American. |
| Kate Roscoe |
There are many things you can feel from Roscoe’s work, but what strikes me most is the feeling of being lost. It’s like facing a dead end wall. This is why some people shed tears.
In his early works, he sometimes surrealistically portrays the uneasy cityscape. I wondered if such anxiety and despair were not the emotions he experienced as an immigrant. (Roscoe was born in the Russian Empire and immigrated to the United States when he was 10.)
– In your early conceptual works, you can feel a sense of anxiety when looking at the cityscape. Roscoe was also an immigrant who moved from Europe. Do you think that influence can be seen in your works?
nice: That’s right. You can feel the anxiety in the work from that time. At that time, New York was going through a difficult time with many people suffering from poverty due to the Great Depression.
Also, Roscoe painted very crowded subways and city scenes at the time, and there is a feeling of losing humanity in such places, and there is also a sense of anxiety that comes from that.
And being an immigrant, life wasn’t easy. Of course, there were a lot of immigrants in New York at the time, so I think it was the overall atmosphere of New York at the time that influenced that sense of anxiety, rather than my personal feelings as an immigrant.
K: I also don’t think my father ever became a complete ‘American’. In some ways, it seemed like he always looked back to his home country, Europe.
Of course, I felt somewhat comfortable in New York, a city of immigrants. So, you could say my father is a true “New Yorker,” but he’s not 100% American.
– You two actively held exhibitions and lectures to promote your father’s world of art, and I think you wanted to show that there was something more than abstract expressionism. I’m curious about the details.
nice: There is a stereotype that my father only painted squares, but in the beginning, he painted surrealistic pictures based on concepts or mythology.
From this time on, my father How have essential human emotions been expressed in various cultures from ancient times to the present?I was interested in it.
So, the later works were ultimately a constant struggle to capture this essence in visual language.
K: There is a piece my father wrote in the 1940s, before he started painting surrealist works. In it, he was thinking about how to directly convey sensations to the audience using simple visual language. So, it means that from that time on, he was thinking about moving towards abstraction.
– Can you tell me more about the writing Roscoe left behind?
nice: Beginning in the mid-1930s and continuing through the early 1940s, Roscoe wrote a book, which he never finished, but which contained philosophical reflections on art.
Artists wrote their opinions on what role they should play in society and how they should convey the truth. He believed that artists should now play the roles previously played by priests and philosophers.
I published this article 20 years ago with some editing, and a Korean translation has recently been published.
(This book is ‘The Artist’s Creative Truth’ (written by Mark Rothko, Wisdom House))
“Rather than a sad picture,
“A painting that meets deep emotions”
Questions of life faced in immersion
| I think Mark Rothko’s paintings are not sad in themselves, but they make the viewer feel deep emotions. Most people try to suppress their sad emotions. They avoid those emotions by thinking, “What should I eat today? What should I do tomorrow?” However, in front of his paintings, he makes us think about what life is and what lies beyond death, and feel emotions. |
| Christopher Roscoe |
– Some people say that abstract expressionist artists like Roscoe, Arshile Gorky, and Jackson Pollock all died tragic deaths, and that they feel sadness in their works because of that. What do you think about this?
nice: I think my father wanted people to feel deep emotions when they saw his work. He wanted to ask serious questions about life through his paintings. Why are we here and what lies beyond death? Same question. When I think about those things, I feel anxious and sad.
therefore The work itself is not sad, but it makes you feel deep emotions.I think so. And it also brings up emotions that you don’t normally feel. Most people try to suppress their sad feelings. Instead, they avoid it by thinking, “What should I eat today?” or “What should I do tomorrow?”, but instead, it’s about what life is and what’s after death. It’s about making people think about these things and feel emotions.
K: Some people say that his later works are darker, that his father’s life became more and more gloomy. However, Roscoe was an artist who delved into essential issues such as the human condition and emotions throughout his life. So it is not right to say that his early works were lively and beautiful and that they became dark and sad afterwards.
– Some people categorize Roscoe’s work as ‘color field abstraction’, but you said in a previous lecture that what you see in his paintings is not color but light. I’m curious about the details.
K: My father would insist that he was never a ‘colorist’, because he never thought of his paintings as expressive or decorative.
Also, when my father took me to art museums when I was little, one of the few times he spoke loudly was about light.
When I saw Rembrandt at the Metropolitan Museum of Art or in Holland, or Turner at the Tate Gallery, he would tell me his thoughts on the use of light in his works. That’s how important he thought light was.
nice: In a good painting, you get the feeling that light is radiating from within. It’s the same with people. In a great person, light comes from within. So even in the darkest picture, if you look at it for a little while, you can see light coming out of it.
I was very impressed by the black and gray paintings in the exhibition. At first, it feels dark, but if you look a little closer, you can feel the light coming out. The light comes not only from the gray, but also from the black. Very soft and subtle… That is conveyed to the audience.
– It’s been a long time since Roscoe passed away, and I think you must have had many thoughts as you continued to look at his remaining works. Like, what was my father thinking when he painted them? What were your thoughts?
K: I often think that way when I look at the paintings from his later years. They are not the paintings I was used to seeing growing up. What is clear is that I don’t feel like these works will be the last. Rather, I think of them as a new beginning.
After my father passed away, I discovered paintings I had never known about, especially works using a pastel palette. I thought they were a very interesting attempt at change.
nice: I specialize in my father’s paintings and help with exhibition planning. In doing so, I often come across the idea that Roscoe came up with some formula or pattern and painted the same painting hundreds of times. However, if you look at the painting carefully for a few minutes, you will know that this is not true.
Looking at the picture, I ask myself these questions: ‘What question is my father asking in this painting? What problem is he trying to solve?’
Since each painting is a new problem to solve, we follow how he tries to find the answer. Maybe he is trying to solve a problem in this painting that he couldn’t solve in the previous painting. Maybe he is asking a completely different question.
The only thing I can say for sure is this. There is always a picture of my father hanging across from the chair where I sit when I write. There are many days when I can’t concentrate on writing, and I go out of the house and sometimes go overseas to do interviews like this (laughs). But the writing chair is the happiest place for me.
As you know, writing is a very difficult task. Sometimes, when I reach a dead end while writing, I look up and look at my father’s paintings. That always gives me inspiration. Perhaps it’s because there are traces of my father having to solve many problems to complete the paintings.“
Traces of Roscoe’s efforts to confront and resolve life’s problems. You can see them together with Lee Ufan’s works at Pace Gallery until October 26th.
※ ‘A Spoonful of Inspiration’ is a newsletter that introduces news from the art world, focusing on various examples of creativity seen in art. It is published every Thursday at 7 AM.
2024-09-14 07:09:42