Rothko's Rooms

To buy this DVD, go to:

http://www.microcinemadvd.com/product/DVD/908/Rothkos_Rooms.html

In the late 1940s and 50s, Mark Rothko (1903-70) was one of the leading American artists who created wall-scale abstract paintings that filled the viewers field of vision and became a form of environment. Rothko spoke of wanting the spectator to feel inside the pictorial space, enveloped in his canvases luminous colour and apparitional surfaces. Together with painters such as Barnett Newman and Clyfford Still, he wanted to express a sense of the sublime, an idea associated with religious awe, vastness and natural magnificence.

Filmed on both sides of the Atlantic, this documentary chronicling Rothkos life and charting the development of his work fills the screen with his softly defined, rectangular clouds of colour stacked symmetrically on top of one another: a visual language conceived to evoke elemental emotions with maximum poignancy. There are penetrating contributions from his daughter, Kate, and his son, Christopher, and comments from a wide range of friends, artists, art historians, collectors and curators. The focus is on Rothkos demands for the perfect setting for the showing of his work, an ideal he pursued throughout his creative life, typified by the story of his iconic Seagram murals, nine of which now hang in a dedicated room at Londons newly-opened Tate Modern. One of the murals commissioners, architect Philip Johnson, is among those who explain why Rothko refused to allow these works to hang in their intended venue, the exclusive Four Seasons restaurant in New York.

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• microcinema
• rooms
• rothko

[andrewnorris1]

Cut the music. It does nothing for your film and does Rothko a great disservice

[KwautLizard]

Visited the Rothko Chapel in Houston which was specifically designed to house Rothko's last series of work before he committed suicide. A moving space that highlight each of these last screams of expressionism from an inspired albeit tormented artist. Hurray to Tate, can't wait to see this space.

[cmatthews926]

@andrewnorris1 agreed, and no, I would definitely not play this music for a patient. If music were to be played in a Rothko setting I would imagine it should be something of very subtle ambient drones/sounds.

Interesting, I'm no longer inclined to watch this video haha.

[andrewnorris1]

@andrewnorris1 The Rothko room in Tate Modern is a place for quiet contemplation. Ok, so the film shows the room without the paintings, but even so it contributes nothing. In fact Rothko's work does not need music, there is music in the colours. Let the colours sing and dispense with the orchestra. You say your are a psychologist. Would you play this music to a patient coming for therapy? BTW I do love this music but not here. i hope that answers your question. Regards.

[andrewnorris1]

@cmatthews926 Tell me what has a 19th Century German classical composer got to do with an American abstract expressionist painter of the mid 20th century. If music is ever used in films it should compliment, enhance and/or help to creat a mood/atmosphere. It should be hardly perceptable, like you don't even notice it, but you come away feeling that you have had an aural and visual experience. This music is too loud, too raucous whereas the paintings are quiet and meditative. (to be continued)

[cmatthews926]

@andrewnorris1 Uhm.. I'm a psychologist lol, I never claimed to be a museum curator. But I'm still curious as to why you say that.

[andrewnorris1]

@cmatthews926 Sorry, if you need to ask why you are in the wrong profession.

[cmatthews926]

@andrewnorris1 ..why?

[svkartisbest]

genius in pain or pain in the genius. shema yehud

[saladshootavvv]

lol Feldman.......YOU KNOW WHAT I MEANT!

[saladshootavvv]

Don Giovanni? Why not Felman's Rothko Chapels?!?!?!