i discovered rothko a few years ago while attending u of st. thomas in houston. the school is in the museum district, next door neighbors to one of the best kept secrets in houston: the rothko chapel. a circular room designed for meditation with a rothko canvas shaded in bluish-black on each wall. at first look you might say, painted canvas? how pretentious. you are wrong, i tell you. i like rothko the same way i like sonic youth or my bloody valentine and thier textured, layered guitars. sure it looks like a big colorful mess, but you can see a lot of subtle shades going on if you look. plus, it's really good stuff to hang on a wall to give a room a lot of different moods. rothko is wonderful, so let's use this thread to google some rothko favorites. i want this thread to be the moodiest, most colorful thread on the site. this one's maybe my favorite:

I've been thinking about getting some of his work for my den because it is so blah in there. Great thread.

I really, really like this one.

I was searching to see if there was a thread about Rothko and it turned up my own. Weird.

Anyway, The Menil Collection near my house just rearranged their gallery to include a 20th Century section and they pulled some great Rothkos out. I'm lucky to be this close to so much good art, even though I don't know shit about it. Anyone else a fan?

wtf is it even a picture of?

A few years ago I was looking for work and found a gallery in DC that had a space set up for his art.

http://www.phillipscollection.org/colle ... index.aspx

outta space

You can just see the moods dripping from the colors.

That's pretty cool. It's funny how different that room looks from the Rothko Chapel I posted in the OP. I really enjoy his brighter paintings.

No you can't.

I don't think we'd have a good time together irl

I think we would. I actually love this guy's stuff.

I once thought of getting a tattoo on my back of one his paintings.

I did too, but then I just have someone punch me in the back every week or so so I have a perpetual bruise there. It looks the same but is a hell of a lot less painful and a hell of a lot less expensive.

I adore Mark Rothko. I've been to the Tate Modern lots of times. Every time I've gone, I've gone to the Rothko room and zoned out for an hour or so. His work is breathtaking - objects for contemplation indeed.

Honestly, I don't get it.

Same for me. Well except that I didn't go the Tate, I've only seen a couple of this paintings in the Museum of Modern Art in Paris. Beautiful stuff.

i used to hate rothko before i found a few of his paintings at the la county museum of art and just stared for awhile. this coltrane quote helped:

“I never even thought about whether or not they understand what I'm doing . . . the emotional reaction is all that matters. As long as there's some feeling of communication, it isn't necessary that it be understood.”

i stopped trying to figure out what it was and just started looking at it. that freed me up. now abstract expressionism is a serious passion of mine.