Many people can tell what a painting of Mark Rothko. Posters of the seductive abstract expressionist color fields are a fixture on dormitory walls. Few people can tell you what it's like to stand in front of a Rothko painting in person. And until now, I'm not sure anyone could say what it's like to be in the presence of 115 Rothkos at once – but this transcendent experience is open to many more people after the Louis Vuitton Foundation opened its impressive encyclopedic book. winter blockbuster in Paris, “Mark Rothko”.
Most museums would dream of holding an exhibition like this. But nowadays, the huge expenses for transport, insurance and loan contracts mean it could only be carried out by a private institution with large financial resources. Supported by billionaire art collector and LVMH chairman Bernard Arnault, the exhibition includes large groups of works on loan from National Gallery of Art in Washington DC and the Tate in London, as well as from private collectors, including the artist's children, Kate Rothko Prizel and Christopher Rothko.
It's a big moment for Paris, as the foundation's curator, Suzanne Pagé, who co-organized this exhibition with Rothko's son, Christopher, can attest.
“No one in four generations has had the opportunity to see Rothko in Paris,” Pagé told me. Although there are two Rothkos in the Pompidou's collection, the last time the artist had a retrospective in France was in 1999 – an exhibition curated by Pagé herself at the Musée d'Art Moderne. “Many young people have posters, but it is a great betrayal to enter Rothko's emotional painting in this way. The essential thing in Rothko’s painting are the vibrations, which are completely reduced in a poster”, explained Pagé. “We have to stop, look and be captivated with the body, with the soul, and we become hypnotized.”
Source: Artnet News