In the Tower: Rothko 1971 / Feldman 1964

I travelled recently to Washington D.C. to see an exhibition of seven (drawn from a series of at least thirteen) large, dark paintings by Mark Rothko from 1964. This series of works, unusually given numbered titles, is often called the "black on black", the "black-form" or more simply just the "black" paintings. In this and the following posts I will embed some photographs of the pieces and the place in which I encountered them: easily one of the most beautiful spaces for this sort of subtle, nuanced art I've ever encountered.

From the left, No. 4, No. 5 and the "Untitled" work from 1964

Unfortunately photographs of this exhibition, however (aside from the fact that they cannot capture many of the nuances of the actual works in situ), cannot capture the effect of the space itself, my emotional state upon encountering them, nor indeed the effect of the playing, over loudspeakers, a looped 24 minute-long composition by Morton Feldman, the beautiful piece "Rothko Chapel" from 1971. I am listening to the piece again right now, the same recording used by the National Gallery of Art in this exhibition: wondering (but unsurprised) at the way this piece now is so powerfully associated with this set of works that it brings my imagination and memory immediately back to the experiences I had in the room. 

Rothko painted these thirteen works immediately before his work on the paintings that would end up in the Rothko Chapel in Houston Texas so it is particularly appropriate to join the two series of works in this way, using the musings of the solo viola and the calls from the solo soprano in the Feldman piece almost as a connecting thread between the two spaces: I almost hear the calls, flicking down a major second, from E to D in the soprano, as a call, coming from the Chapel itself, calling up my imagined version of the Rothko Chapel inside this space devoted to showing works that relate to it.

Perhaps this is not one space but (at least) two?

These works are extraordinarily hard to write about: they are not declarative statements, despite their size and impact, they are questions in themselves. I have to ask myself what I am seeing, indeed, am I seeing? These works throw everything back on the viewer, more so than other Rothko works I have seen. There is a strong sense of the "answers", were there any, being withheld indefinitely in these implacable variations of surface, proportion and tone: they are gnomic, enigmatic and virtually incommunicable.

While I am there I wonder to myself if "Rothko Chapel" is Feldman's response to Ives' "Unanswered Question", with the solo viola taking the role the solo trumpet has in the Ives and the string chords re-appearing in Feldman as the wordless chorus. How typical of Feldman: to respond to an unanswered and perhaps unanswerable question with further, open and undelimitable questions.

From the left, No. 6, No. 2, No. 8 and No. 4

First of all I simply have to describe the experience itself, in as much detail as I can recall, or derive from the notes I took whilst there. I came out of the large slow elevator, for which I seemed to have waited an age, paced the corridor outside in my impatience (I didn't know at that stage that there was a small spiral stairway into the tower), moved down an angular and angled corridor with early Rothkos from prior to 1948, into a light-filled, cathedral-like space. I didn't notice at first its trapezoidal form, but I was immediately aware of the almost gothic height of the ceiling, the absence of artificial light, the shifting colour, intensity and direction of ambient filtered sunlight and most of all, while registering the shock of seeing these works finally for the first time, aware of having come into the quiet slow processional of the composition at some point or other.

From the left, No. 7, No. 6 (?) and No. 2

This is one aspect of the installation that intrigued me greatly, as soon as you enter into the room, unless by chance one entered into the room within the silent 6 minutes that held sway between the half-hourly repetitions of the Feldman piece, you were immediately surrounded by resonance, by the echoing fall of bells and vibraphone, timpani rolls, little fragments of viola solo or dense, wordless chords in the voices.

There was a strong sense of coming into a musical space as much as a visual one. In this way I was also immediately being made aware therefore of the pre-existence of the works themselves, as if they had been humming away to themselves before you entered the room.

From the left, No. 2, No. 8 and No. 4

And that they did, they hummed quietly on the walls: if earlier, more refulgently coloured works from the 1950s could be said to "sing", these works, in their quiet intimacy, "hummed" like the hummed chorus required by Feldman (he asks for a non-nasal "ng" sound, with slightly opened mouth but wordless, inarticulate but able to evoke a whole world of colour and sensation).

Almost not there at first (of course I had travelled for so long and such a distance to see these works which I felt had been waiting for me), the calm light and beauty of the space itself as well quickly became apparent.

I think to myself that I have not seen many installations of art more sensitive and beautiful, challenging and fascinating than this.