| The
Russian-born American artist Mark Rothko (1903–1970) was one of the most important
of the Abstract Expressionists. He became famous for his mainly large-format paintings
with their superimposed rectangles on a monochrome ground. The exhibition, which will include 102 works from public and private collections, will cover all phases in Rothko’s career. Two major groups of works that are being loaned in their entirety for the first time – the Rothko Room from the Phillips Collection (Washington, D.C.) and the Harvard Murals (Harvard University) – will be particular focal points of the exhibition. These Rothko rooms will enable visitors to experience at first hand the intense relationship between picture and onlooker that the artist sought to create. As far back as the early 1950s, Rothko distanced himself from normal practice in the art world at that time by explicitly setting out to control the presentation of his paintings. The vastness of his canvases and the way he hung them very close together in fairly small rooms with subdued lighting were intended to ensure that they had an overwhelming impact on viewers. Rothko wanted the rooms to be completely saturated with his paintings. A comprehensive catalogue with colour plates is being published in conjunction with the exhibition (german and english). Guest curator Oliver Wick |