Rothko and Rabbit Holes
There's so much hype about shows in the big galleries and theatres that sometimes I like to turn up to something I know nothing about - this is how I became acquainted with some of the theatre companies and directors whose work I've enjoyed most, like and the . It's a tendency that can prove dangerous, however, because sometimes the reason you haven't heard of something is because it just isn't very good. On Saturday I headed down to the Bargehouse, a Victorian warehouse that had been decked out by new company for a 'multi-artform' event, . Over the course of two hours, music, art and performance were supposed to draw the spectator into a magical world but I'm afraid that I didn't last anything like that long.
Having wandered through the magical spaces created by in Faust and Shunt's I know how compelling such experiences can be, unfortunately Down the Rabbit Hole felt more like an art college degree show than an immersive event. Much of the Bargehouse was flooded with light, which made it difficult to maintain the necessary sense of being removed from the everyday world, and where rooms had been draped in black or mocked-up as tunnels the feeling was more Santa's Grotto than Wonderland. I suppose that this was a reminder of just how difficult it is to produce this sort of event, and that putting something on for three days means that the costs are likely to be prohibitive.
Down at I had a more fruitful experience at the . The show concentrates on the late paintings, and much has been said about their gloom and the inability to look at them without seeking clues to the artist's subsequent suicide. Before the show I would have considered myself Rothko-agnostic: familiar with the paintings but not feeling anything much about his work. It took me a while to see anything other than the colours and the repeated rectangular shapes, but halfway through the show I stopped in front of the painting (1964) and felt more drawn in. The texture of Rothko's painting had become something else; there was a velvety depth to the picture that seemed bottomless. Instead of looking at another in a series of endless empty window frames I was looking through the picture to something else. No5 was in fact part of a series entitled , a series that was never shown together during Rothko's life. The pictures call to mind some of the work of Anish Kapoor, in particular (1988-9), which pulls in the viewer in a similar way. I left the exhibition feeling like I understood more about Rothko's technique but without being weighed down by gloom or grief. Although I can see now why some people talk about spiritual experiences in relation to the pictures I remained largely unmoved. What is most striking about the work is the extent to which it loses its intensity in reproduction - I'd be amazed if Tate managed to shift many copies of the catalogue, although I'm sure that the more brightly coloured of the prints will go down well.
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