The Black Blog
Painted Black
Today’s Today Programme on Radio 4 went to the Tate Modern to look at the Mark Rothko exhibition with Turner Prize-winning sculptor, Anish Kapoor. Kapoor explained that part of the magic of Rothko comes down to the ‘act of looking’ at his art and, across the board, an optical ‘struggle with the figurative’. I was lost here.
But I was later found with the mention of his black paintings: Black on Maroon (a dense black square…no maroon) and Black on Grey (pictured). Kapoor said that these blacks evoke the ‘black of cinema, the black of style; not the black of death’, which I rather liked, given that I’m an advocate for black’s light side. I can’t remember if it was Kapoor or his interviewer who said that they appeared to be a ‘meditation on darkness’.
The interviewer then offered up the fact that Rothko committed suicide shortly after painting these works and was found in a pool of blood wearing Long Johns and black socks.
In my mind’s eye, I can see Black on Maroon, or maybe Crimson.
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