PaperCity Magazine

September 2015 - Houston

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SEPTEMBER | PAGE 53 | 2015 "Like the de Menils, Mark Rothko always looked to move people away from the trivial, to look at, and look for, ultimate truths. This was always the motive behind his painting; it is just more absolutely expressed in the Chapel." — Christopher Rothko T his fall, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, is the sole American venue for the retrospective of 20th-century master Mark Rothko (1903-1970); he and Pollock are considered the most important abstract painters of the modern era. A half-century ago, patrons Dominique and John de Menil recognized Rothko's greatness and commissioned a series of paintings for the Rothko Chapel, which opened in 1971, inaugurating what would become the campus of The Menil Collection. Catherine D. Anspon queries the artist's son, Christopher Rothko, about his role as keeper of the flame. Most indelible and cherished memory of your father. Without question, his voice. It was round and warm and usually singing Mozart. Best art experience with your father growing up. My father and I discussed music constantly but never discussed art. When I would visit him in his studio [the huge carriage house he rented to produce the murals for the Chapel in Houston], however, he would unfurl a seemingly endless roll of brown craft paper on the wall and let me paint as much as I wished. Most influential thing you learned through your father's written notes and works of art. The power of abstraction. It was the universal language that he used to shape and communicate his own personal vision of the world, his philosophies — what he felt were the true essentials of human existence. Why your father's work resonates so powerfully today. Because of the sincerity with which he speaks through his paintings, and the deep human connection he actively seeks with each viewer through each work. Painting by your father that moves you the most. A 1963 work at the Kunsthaus Zürich. It is four black rectangles on a black background, and yet each sings out with a unique voice. And just above the uppermost black rectangle is a band of creamy, almost fleshy white. It softens anything that may have seemed forbidding about the painting and in fact, fills it with light. What makes the Rothko Chapel commissions unique in terms of your father's oeuvre? The Chapel finally gave my father the space to create a holistic experience from his art, and as an installation, it gives his work the time to speak deeply with the viewer. Do you live with work by your father? Yes. Do you collect contemporary art? Yes, but in a relaxed, personal way. I love art, and from time to time I buy things that move me, but I have no involvement with the market and the names or any isms. Did you attend the opening of the Chapel? No, I was only 7. But my sister, Kate, was here. When did you become involved with the Rothko Chapel and step onto its board of trustees? In 2004. I had always loved the Chapel, but my increasing focus on my father's work in the 1990s made me realize its importance. It was in discussions with the director Suna Umari at the time of my father's centenary celebrations in 2003 that I really felt a strong pull to get involved and put myself forward for election to the board. Trajectory of your professional life. I worked as a classical music critic for a number of years (still my first love). I am a clinical psychologist by training and practiced for several years. Throughout, I have tended my father's legacy, which has been my exclusive work for the last 15 years — organizing exhibitions, writing and lecturing about his work, archiving and editing and publishing his written work, supporting scholars and curators in their researches and occasionally curating myself. Hometown? Personal stats? Manhattan. Married 21 years. Three kids. Your involvement in the upcoming Rothko retrospective at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. I have been in close contact with curator Alison Greene for several months. I have worked with her around a few questions of painting selection and helped her find essays for the catalog (as well as contributing one of my own). I will be giving a talk with [MFAH director] Gary Tinterow November 16. I made similar contributions at the exhibition's first stop in The Hague and, to a lesser degree, in Seoul. On your upcoming volume: Mark Rothko: From the Inside Out. I came up with ideas for nearly all of the essays in the volume in a single moment about 12 years ago. A couple trickled out as catalog essays or lectures, but most were written in the last two years. It's intended as a pretty comprehensive discussion of my father's work, what makes it tick and what can get in the way. It draws on my 25 years of hands-on experience with the paintings and my unique perspective — to some degree as his son, but primarily as someone who looks carefully at only one artist's work. I understand the connective tissue between the different periods, the patterns and the exceptions — this is my inside-out point of view. Take us back to the beginning of the Rothko Chapel. What's the anecdote about John de Menil coming up with the idea while stuck in Houston traffic? It's come down to me as [John de Menil's] moment of epiphany [which arose when he was stalled during rush hour]. [He believed] that what Houston needed was a place for respite, for contemplation. A sacred space that would help people move away from the mundane — such as traffic — to deeper things. On the architecture of the Chapel: Is it true that your father took over as architect after Philip Johnson left the project? That evolution happened over a number of years, but it is in essence true. Johnson was very responsive, even when reluctant, to my father's vision for the Chapel — the octagon, the simplicity, the apse for the north triptych. They could not agree, however, about the ceiling height, skylighting and (lack) of tower, and Johnson left the project when the de Menil's supported my father. The firm of Barnstone and Aubrey helped realize my father's plan, allowing further simplifications so that we have today an unimpeded ground level experience of my father's murals. Was the Rothko Chapel originally planned to serve the Catholic faith? Yes. When did this change to become nondenominational? In the late 1960s before the actual construction. Do your father's paintings allude subtly to the Stations of the Cross? There is no explicit discussion of this, but he knew he was [originally] creating a Catholic Chapel, and the 14 panels seem an unlikely coincidence.

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