7 Ways of Thinking About Art
Week Seven (final session) Tate Modern
Notes from Previous Sessions
Week One: Art as Thought-Provoking
Week Two: Art as Intentional
Week Three: Art as Self-Presentation
Week Four: Art as Conceptual
Week Five: Art as Original
Week Six: Art as Curated
Week 7: Art as Iconic
There are several related senses in which ‘iconic’ is used. For example, in semiotics, following the philosopher C.S. Peirce, an ‘iconic’ sign is one which relies on resemblance in certain respects between the thing represented and its sign.
For this session, however, we were focussing on the notion of an iconic work of art. By this I meant
- an outstanding example of a particular artist’s output
- that embodies the artist’s highest achievement (at least in relation to a particular phase of that artist’s work such as Picasso’s Blue Period).
- one that unlocks understanding of that artist’s individual style
To call a work ‘iconic’ in this sense is to make an evaluative judgment about the work’s worth, and perhaps to imply that it has passed the Test of Time. Often works later recognised as iconic are missed by critics who fail to recognise their creative originality.
Mark Rothko’s 9 Seagram Murals in the ‘Rothko Room’ of Tate Modern (Room 3, Level 3 East, in Material Gestures) are iconic in the above sense.These were initially commissioned for the Four Seasons Restaurant in New York. Perhaps uncomfortable about the idea of his paintings serving as a backdrop for Manhattan’s rich diners’ nights out, Rothko changed his mind about the commission, repayed the advance, and later left 9 paintings as a bequest to Tate. (Read this excellent essay by Jonathan Jones and one by John Banville. Also an interesting downloadable mp3 about his painting techniques for this series).
These 9 paintings are a subset of a group of approximately thirty that he painted, some of which are on display in other museums. The terms of the bequest, requiring that the pictures always be on display together, never with the work of other artists, result in near-ideal viewing conditions for these works (which jointly can be viewed as an installation).
The Rothko Room also served as a focus for a recapitulation of the other six ways of seeing art discussed in the course. These notes are not a full summary, but just a reminder of the sorts of issues that arise when approaching this room through the lens of the seven ways of thinking of art identified in this course.
So, they are thought-provoking (week one) in the sense that many people have projected their own interpretations on these paintings. Visitors often use them as a stimulus to personal meditations. Yet, our experience of the works comes into focus if we recognise them as intentional (week two): Rothko’s intentions include that these paintings be viewed close up under low light conditions. There is an element of self-presentation (week three) here, with Rothko’s implied personality of serious brooding intensity…also a confidence of scale and simplicity…There is perhaps a conceptual (week four) element to these paintings too in that, infuenced by Nietzsche's early book The Birth of Tragedy, Rothko self-consciously aimed to make his art Dionysian…
The relic-like nature of these works that encourages pilgrimage to experience them directly rather than through reproductions is one aspect of their being original (week five). They also have creative originality (also week five) in the sense that although far from the first painter to adopt an abstract style, Rothko developed a characteristic individual way of painting and recogisable palette. This room has been curated (week six) despite, unusually, many of the conditions having been set by the artist. The rhetoric of the curator in relation to this room is interesting. For example, the wording of the wall caption by Christoph Grunenberg seems to suggest that these are the only Seagram Murals in existence, using phrases like 'all nine' to refer to those in Tate Modern.
Notes from Previous Sessions
Week One: Art as Thought-Provoking
Week Two: Art as Intentional
Week Three: Art as Self-Presentation
Week Four: Art as Conceptual
Week Five: Art as Original
Week Six: Art as Curated
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