Rothko Defaced (Really)

[Atheist-Lite]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-19866004

Mark Rothko painting at Tate Modern 'defaced'

A painting by artist Mark Rothko at the Tate Modern has been defaced by a small amount of black paint, a spokeswoman for the gallery has confirmed.

The London gallery said one of the artist's Seagram murals was defaced at about 15:25 BST.

Paintings by the Modernist painter, one of America's most important post-war artists, have sold for tens of millions of pounds.

The gallery was shut for a short period and then reopened.

Police are investigating the incident.

(continued, mistaken for a almost blank canvas?)

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I'm so ...

[tattuchu]

Anything's an improvement over that cack-handed shite.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

How did they find out?

[mistermack]

Lets hope this isn't just a one-off.

[Animavore]

How did they find out?

Of course someone got there first.

[amused]

Rothko seems to me to be the artworld's equivalent of musics' boybands - a creation of the marketers. But I suppose that's true of most modern 'art'.

[mistermack]

Yeh, but the big difference is that everybody knows that the boy bands are shite, and just fodder for the dummies to spend their money on. In fact, even the dummies know it, nobody's got any real illusions.
But with art, it's the opposite way around.
The big pitch is that this crap is wonderful, and anybody who DOESN'T think so, just doesn't "get it".
Except of course that there's nothing to get.
So we shouldn't really group it with boy bands.
That's unfair to boy bands.

[Rum]

I rather like Rothko's paintings. Close up they have real impact.

Sadly the obscene market value of his and so many other interesting artists distorts any sense of the intrinsic worth of the paintings in an aesthetic sense.

[Atheist-Lite]

I rather like Rothko's paintings. Close up they have real impact.

Sadly the obscene market value of his and so many other interesting artists distorts any sense of the intrinsic worth of the paintings in an aesthetic sense.

I can do one in a tick, for a nominal sum of four and half grand.

[Rum]

Yeah but you didn't did you.

[Atheist-Lite]

Yeah but you didn't did you.

I always lay down two coats when there's painting to be done. Just got to add a bit of white to the overcoat and leave some space round the edges. It's all in the brush strokes. I am a expert with this. Nothing could go wrong.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

Maroon rectangles.

Some of his earlier works show that he had genuine talent - but maroon rectangles?

Rothko is the epitomy of the definition of art as "anything of no practical purpose that someone will pay you for"! He was a corporate con-artist par excellence - for which he deserved enormous kudos - but... fucking maroon rectangles!

[Pappa]

I rather like Rothko's paintings. Close up they have real impact.

Me too. And for me, the mere fact that everyone continually argues about their status as "art" adds to their artistic (not monetary) value.

[mistermack]

I rather like Rothko's paintings. Close up they have real impact.

Me too. And for me, the mere fact that everyone continually argues about their status as "art" adds to their artistic (not monetary) value.

So long as there are people who fall for the con, there will be argument, with people who don't.
That's not any artistic value, thats just the gullibility of some people. If a con is art, then it's very successful art, and the artistic value is indeed growing, as more people fall for the con.

The thing is, it's not just Rothko who created that con, it's the art critics and "experts" who built it up along the way. It's not one man's achievement, it belongs to thousands.

Rothko painted the daub, but that was nothing, without the contribution of others.