Rothko + It was only the sea sounding weary After so many lifetimes Of pretending to be rushing off somewhere And never getting anywhere. — Charles Simic ...
I don't usually like abstract art but I see the colors of the ocean and the sky in this one....almost like the most minimal depiction of a day at the ...
In these paintings, color and structure are inseparable: the forms themselves consist of color alone, and their translucency establishes a layered depth that complements and vastly enriches the vertical architecture of the composition.
Variations in saturation and tone as well as hue evoke an elusive yet almost palpable realm of shallow space. Color, structure, and space combine to create a unique presence. In this respect, Rothko stated that the large scale of these
canvases was intended to contain or envelop the viewer–not to be “grandiose,” but “intimate and human.”
Pace Gallery has opened a London branch in the space just behind the Royal Academy to the right of where Haunch of Venison used to be. Opening the gallery is Rothko/Sugimoto: Dark Paintings and Seascapes – an exhibition which “juxtaposes Mark Rothko’s late black and grey paintings with Hiroshi Sugimoto’s photographs of bodies of water, exploring the visual and conceptual affinities between the two.”
Translated, this means that you will find a room packed with hauntingly beautiful horizons and “horizons”.
Visually similar, eight acrylic paintings from the period a few months prior to Rothko’s suicide sit alongside eight gelatin silver prints by Tokyo-born artist Hiroshi Sugimoto. But the affinity is deeper than just the physical – it kind of has to be otherwise any comparison or relationship with the Rothkos would fall apart in moments.
According to Sugimoto:
“For several decades I have created seascapes. Not depicting the world in photographs, I’d like to think, but rather projecting my internal seascapes onto the canvas of the world. Skies now forming bright rectangles, water now melting into dark fluid rectangles. I sometimes think I see a dark horizon cutting across Mark Rothko’s paintings. It’s then I unconsciously realize that paintings are more truthful than photographs and photographs are more illusory than paintings.”
The thing which most stuck with me was the middle section, curated by Sugimoto himself which had all the ‘horizons’ on the same level. It was intended to be just below the [average] viewer’s chin, creating a subtle just-above-water effect. As someone who fell below that particular waterline, I spent part of the show with Stevie Smith’s Not Waving But Drowning echoing round my head. But despite that slight distraction it was easy to enter a kind of meditative state with these artworks – part alien landscape, part emotional conduit.
The best way to describe the feeling that comes from spending time with the work is that you become aware of a palpable vastness onto which the art provides a window.