Also from a different perspective (when it comes to "modern arts are just CIA-funded bourgeois art" narrative).
Palestinian artist: "Abstract art is the culture of the working class folks; it's not the bourgeois culture..... It's the bourgeois who's the destroyer [of the culture]."
It gets stranger: Rothko was an anarchist and sometimes he purposefully made some depressing minimalist for high end restaurants just to fuck with rich people.
I've read about that, and to this day I can't fully understand either their endgame or what they accomplished with that. Or if soviet artists like Kandinsky had something to do with it, or whatever because at some point the Soviets also got quite interpretative themselves. In the "weird shit" folder
My take-away is that it was just part of the broader onslaught on folk-art generally. There were a lot of artists saying very pointed things about the way the US government was conducting itself and they would much rather we were all arguing over whether the colored squares are art or not.
Makes sense. Misdirection and smokescreens; motherfuckers keep doing that to this day. Like the saying goes, thye have you fighting a "culture war" to avoid a class war. crafty fuckers.
Are you implying Rothko had a "good" phase? I thought the entire point of the exercise was sublimity - terrifying the shit out of people with giant menacing blocks of colour.
Just gonna go on record and say Rothko chapel killed my boyfriend’s religion and killed my attachment to weed. It is a hole in which something from you is exacted. You will leave it eventually, but part of you will stay.
The memorial fountain to MLK outside it is nice though :)
Had to google it. On first glance, seems like a great place to hold Nihilist ceremonies. Just hang out with your dudes wearing all black and saying "We believe in Nothing"
Photography does that space no justice. In my experience it’s a VERY hard space to be in and not have a powerful emotional reaction. What exactly emotion that is varies a lot, but it’s a hell of a space
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https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/modern-art-was-cia-weapon-1578808.html
Palestinian artist: "Abstract art is the culture of the working class folks; it's not the bourgeois culture..... It's the bourgeois who's the destroyer [of the culture]."
The memorial fountain to MLK outside it is nice though :)