The works of Mark Rothko have never failed to split opinion. Were those vast colour field paintings a bold new direction for abstract art or simply fuel for the “my child could paint that” brigade? To his detractors, Rothko’s abstractions appear devoid of symbolism or discernible message. Yet he is currently undergoing an unexpected cultural reappraisal thanks to his adoption by the art lovers of gen Z.
Across TikTok and Instagram, videos centred on Rothko’s work are accumulating hundreds of thousands of views. One creator has begun styling outfits inspired by individual Rothko canvases; another assigns Rothko works to personality archetypes, describing Untitled (Yellow and Blue) as a match for “someone who wakes up early, drinks citrus water and has their life together – or at least looks like it”. Elsewhere, users compare his atmospheric palettes to the hazy melancholy of the Cocteau Twins – the dream pop band also undergoing a gen Z renaissance right now. As one young creator put it recently: “Date idea: me, Rothko, and nobody saying ‘I could have done these.’”
The question, then, is why Rothko resonates so profoundly with gen Z audiences? Perhaps because the era they’re experiencing is characterised by relentless visual stimuli, as well as an inescapable tie to unsteadying world events. Rothko’s paintings, even on a social feed, function as a form of aesthetic refuge from the bombardment of overstimulating content; his meditative swathes of colour and discovery of depth in simplicity are its antidote.
Houston, Texas, is home to the Rothko Chapel. Commissioned by two devout Catholic frenchmen, John and Dominique de Menil, in 1964, it consists of one windowless octagonal room with 14 large-scale paintings on display. There is nowhere else to be, nowhere to move on to if you were planning to quickly glance over and photograph the works. It is a space which softly forces a presence and elicits a deep reaction to his work. According to the Chapel’s visitor engagement specialist, Carolyn King, “when we’re left with nothing, we’re able to sit with mystery, to sit with confusion and discomfort; we’re able to allow ourselves to be provoked by the sublime.”
King has noticed a wide array of visitors to the Rothko Chapel. “I see some walking right in, turning away and leaving. They’re not ready for the confrontation. But there are a group of young folks that come in and are extremely curious and they realise that they need something like this. So they’re open to interrogate the work and interrogate themselves, in a way.”
Rothko once famously said: “a painting is not a picture of an experience; it is an experience”. His works are now so often seen for the first time via digital mediums, without the subtle textures, layers of colour and precise brushstrokes from which emotion can be derived in person – it’s hard to say how satisfied Rothko himself would be that audiences are being introduced to his works in this way.
Natalia Sidlina is curator of international art at Tate Modern, which currently houses Rothko’s Seagram Murals – a selection of nine artworks of largely ruminative maroons and deep browns, originally commissioned in 1958. For Sidlina, the proliferation of art across digital platforms is ultimately a positive development forcultural engagement, especially when it provokes some people to visit the works in person. She believes that Rothko would probably have shared a similar view.
“Rothko very rarely commented about his works or told people what they were supposed to see or feel in front of them,” she says. “I think he would have been interested to stay back and observe how the next generation of people engaged with his work, on whatever platform or in whichever form, and have a joyful experience without imposing any specific narrative for the way of looking.”
She adds: “I think the fact he rarely told people what to feel resonates strongly with a contemporary audience who don’t often want to hear instruction about what to do.”
Concurrently to the online hype, and no doubt without coincidence, Rothko’s works are being exhibited across three cultural sites in Florence right now: Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Palazzo Strozzi and Museo di San Marco. The latter presents Rothko’s paintings alongside those of early Renaissance master Fra Angelico in an anachronistic dialogue curated by Rothko’s own son, Christopher, and Elena Geuna. The social media boom will certainly be of no detriment to the exhibitions’ success; videos documenting the displays have already garnered huge viewer figures.
There is an irony and a beauty in Rothko’s contemporary revival: that an artist occasionally criticised as inaccessible and shallow, has found perhaps his deepest resonance with a generation far from his own.