Essays

Pace Artists Reflect on Mark Rothko

Published Tuesday, Oct 17, 2023

Mary Corse

"I'm always influenced by the meditative feeling I get when I look at Rothko's paintings. For me, that feeling is one of the most important in art."

Huong Dodinh

« Rothko est un artiste de génie, et son oeuvre de toujours m'a émue. C'est pourquoi je suis profondément touchée et très sincèrement honorée que vous, Marc, me donniez l'opportunité d'apporter ma contribution à cet évènement majeur. Aussi c'est avec tout mon coeur que je vais réaliser cette oeuvre en son hommage. »

"Rothko is a genius artist, and his work has always moved me. This is why I am profoundly touched and sincerely honored that you, Marc, have given me this opportunity to give my contribution to this major event. Also, its with my whole heart that I will create this work for his homage."

Tara Donovan

"For me, Rothko’s reference to his works as 'dramas' is a perfectly succinct term to describe an experience of art where the medium is merely the stagecraft an artist utilizes to offer the viewer an unfolding of their perceptual capacities, which shifts focus away from material surfaces and volumes in order to open up psychological space for the sublime."

Torkwase Dyson

"This painting holds stories of black geographies; of ocean and land, of movement and liberation, of spaciousness and scale. It is alive with compositions that invite possibilities of state change toward the dangerous beauty of the universe."

Virginia Jaramillo

"As young artists, my husband, Daniel La Rue Johnson, and I greatly admired Mark Rothko so much so that we named our youngest son Marc Rothko. I am honored to contribute to this symbolic gesture to a great artist."

Li Songsong

"Mark Rothko is one of my most respected and valued artists. I fondly remember Dark Palette at 25th Street in 2017, it moved me deeply. One year later, I visited Rothko Chapel in Houston, and in that special space had an unforgettable, almost transcendental experience. Rothko’s art not only belongs to his time but is timeless. It is about the liberation and freedom of the human spirit which is an important issue for us to reconsider today. I’m honored to participate. I will consider this project very carefully and attempt to make a work that could pay homage to Rothko."

Robert Longo

"In making my work, I referenced a Doric temple [Rothko] visited in Paestum. While he was there he said, 'I have been painting Greek temples all my life without knowing it.' For me, Rothko’s works always allude to landscapes and propose the notion that the horizon line is the origin of abstraction.

His rejection of Realism was amplified by the destruction and horrors brought on by World War II and his experiences with Anti-Semitism. My work is a humble way of honoring the dignity and drama of the windows and portals that Rothko conjured."

Kylie Manning

"Rothko means a great deal to me, my mother considered standing in front of his paintings a truly spiritual experience."

Maysha Mohamedi

"When I look at a Rothko painting I think about the theatrics of math... My painting The Knot Point Won is about that."

Michal Rovner

"Being at an early stage as a young artist, at Rothko’s Chapel, made an unforgettable imprint in me. The endlessness, the void, the depth of feelings, and his courage to touch it, made an unforgettable imprint in me."

Mika Tajima

"Art d'Ameublement series are ambient paintings—gradient bands of color that are subtitled with geographic locations produce affective associations operating similarly to the transformative effects of Rothko's works."

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Essays — Pace Artists Reflect on Mark Rothko, Oct 17, 2023