thenationofartists.com

A recent sojourn took NoA founder, Elliot Kotek, to Washington D.C. and on to New York. Always inspired to journey with art and food as his companions, Elliot found himself accompanied by the timbre of a tragic painter - Mark Rothko.

D.C.: The Phillips Collection - 1600 21st Street, NW | Washington, DC 20009
The Rothko Room first created by Duncan Phillips in 1960 is an intimate, single-bench room of reverence to the expressionist. I prefer "expressionist" to the "abstract expressionist" label with which he was tagged as, to many for whom the paintings connect, the pieces are expressionistic to such extent as to appear truly representative of... emotion, motion, life.



N.Y.C.: "RED" - Golden Theater, 45th Street, NYC, NY



Set in a replica of Rothko's studio, "RED" transpires over the course of two years (1958-1960). Rothko, already a successful artist, has accepted a commission of $35,000 to produce large pieces for the Four Seasons Restaurant in New York, set in the then new Seagrams building heralding the arrival of the modernists, the minimalist and the abstract expressionism they hold dear. It was the largest commission in the art world, and Rothko had been selected to crown it ahead of De Kooning and other giants in his peerage.

Prestigious, no doubt, but the commission battled with Rothko's ideas of an artist's integrity. Rothko was already an academic, a man who, unlike Pollock, had set himself rigid work hours, arriving to the "office" in a banker's business suit before changing into his work gear for his 9-to-5 dive into the depths of his canvases. He respected his own notions of what an artist's role was in society, and he'd worked hard to distinguish himself as a thinker and philosopher above all in his time.

The play is sensational... gripping. A two-handed effort between Rothko (powerfully portrayed by Alfred Molina) and his young assistant (Eddie Redmayne). The relationship between teacher/student, father/son inherent in the words gives Rothko the room to lecture his worker with his words and ideas, contemplating the studio mindset of this great thinker upon whom the pop artists were set to descend. The play hints at the troubles living within the painter who, until his bloodied in-studio suicide in 1970, had seemed above the early deaths of Pollock and other tragic figures in his midst.

See this play if you can - it's sensitive and searing and will keep your mind mumbling about its musings for long after you've exited the room.

The play's writer John Logan, director Michael Grandage and actors Alfred Molina and Eddie Redmayne sat down with Charlie Rose - you can see the interview (including clips from the play) here: www.charlierose.com/view/interview/10954