贰诲颈迟辞谤蝉鈥櫬爊辞迟别
These days you don鈥檛 often hear the word transcendental being used, particularly amid the language that accompanies the cacophonous mix of art styles and aesthetics, but it has never disappeared. To coincide with an exhibition of Rothko鈥檚 late works at 色控传媒 Brice Marden pays homage to the master of the abstract sublime as well as exploring how Rothko鈥檚 taste for the transcendental has inspired his聽work.
The late critic and curator Robert Rosenblum famously explored how such sensibilities linked Caspar David Friedrich and Turner to the astraction of Mondrian and Rothko, and wrote how their work 鈥榩laces us on the threshold of those shapeless infinities鈥. As Beat Wyss writes in relation to Friedrich鈥檚 iconic Monk by the Sea c.1809, his legacy 鈥 what he calls 鈥榯he Friedrich effect鈥 鈥 saw 鈥榯he Romantic confrontation of the ego and the cosmos transposed into the white cube of the聽gallery鈥.
When Rothko said he was attracted to 鈥榩ictures of a single human figure 鈥 alone in a moment of utter immobility鈥, he could have been talking about Friedrich. But the sentiment of being transfixed by an artwork could also extend to Francis Bacon鈥檚 paintings (on view at his forthcoming retrospective at Tate Britain), or even to non-figurative works such as Lucio Fontana鈥檚 extraordinary Spatial Light 鈥 Structure in Neon for the 9th Milan Triennial 1951. Alternatively, we could become immersed and enveloped, perhaps even disorientated, in an installation by Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster聽 鈥 an experience that may not be so far removed from Marden鈥檚 road聽trip.
Bice Curiger and聽Simon聽Grant
