We have to talk about Rothko (2025) 数字艺术 由 Frank Verreyken

Because I have always loved Rothko's work, this story!
The Commercialization of Rothko: Between Contemplation and Consumption
Can we still view Rothko's work independently of its commercialization?
Mark Rothko dreamed of an art that would transform the viewer, offering spiritual experience in a world increasingly dominated by materialism. His monumental color fields were conceived as meditations, as spaces for inner contemplation. But nearly sixty years after his death, his work seems trapped in a paradox: how do you preserve the spiritual essence of art that is increasingly defined by its commercial value?
The Silence of Houston
In the Rothko Chapel in Houston, where fourteen monumental canvases envelop the visitor in an almost tangible silence, you still experience something of Rothko's original intention. Here, in contemplative solitude, the deep purples and blacks speak their own language. They demand time, patience, surrender. These are works that reveal their secrets only to those willing to slow down, to listen to what remains unspoken.
This experience – alone with the work, without crowds, without smartphone flashes – is becoming increasingly rare. In American museums, one can often still view Rothko's paintings in relative peace, but this privilege feels fragile, as though it could disappear at any moment under pressure from the art market and tourism.
The Circus of Paris
This rupture became painfully clear during the Rothko exhibition at the Fondation Louis Vuitton in 2024. Here, the artist was presented as a luxury brand, his work framed by Frank Gehry's architectural extravagance and LVMH's commercial power. The exhibition drew masses of visitors who consumed Rothko as a cultural product, an Instagram moment, a status symbol.
It was Rothko as circus: spectacular, accessible, but stripped of its essence. Where his work demands silence, it received spectacle. Where it yearns for contemplation, it got consumption. The irony was almost palpable: an artist who struggled throughout his life with the commercialization of art became posthumously the ultimate commercial product.
The Impossible Question
Can we still see Rothko independently of his commercial value? The answer is complex. The art market has transformed his work from spiritual objects into financial instruments. When a Rothko is worth hundreds of millions of dollars, it becomes nearly impossible to look at it purely. Every brushstroke carries the weight of speculation, every color transition is measured in market value.
Yet something untouchable remains in his finest works. Under the right circumstances – in the silence of a museum early in the morning, in the meditative space of the Chapel – his paintings can still exert their original power. They can still transform, move, compel contemplation.
The Paradox of Accessibility
Commercialization has paradoxically made Rothko both more accessible and less accessible. More people than ever know his name, his work hangs as posters in student rooms worldwide. But simultaneously, the commercial machinery has erected barriers between the public and the genuine experience of his art.
Rothko wanted his work to function as a drug – a means of consciousness transformation. Instead, it has often devolved into decoration, cultural capital, a marker of refined taste. The question is whether we, knowing what we know about the art market and its mechanisms, can still find the innocence to surrender ourselves to his work.
Conclusion: The Viewer's Responsibility
Perhaps the answer lies not with the art world, but with ourselves as viewers. In an age when everything becomes commercialized, experiencing art as it was intended becomes a conscious choice. It requires courage to slow down in a world that accelerates, to pause before what cannot be bought in works that seem to have everything for sale.
Rothko's legacy depends on our willingness to resist market logic, to see his paintings as more than investment or decoration. In every encounter with his work, we can choose: do we consume, or do we allow ourselves to be transformed? That choice, however small, determines whether Rothko's dream of spiritual art survives in our commercialized world.

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