Back in the late 70s, there was a terrific documentary on the BBC called Connections. It was hosted by historian and author James Burke and now that I think about it, I don’t remember whether I watched it on PBS or I borrowed VHS copies of it from my freshman English teacher, Mrs. Copeland who also loaned out copies of Cosmos. And to be clear, I’m talking about the Carl Sagan version, not the Neil Degrasse Tyson version. Regardless, the show was all about tracing the connections between things that on the surface share nothing in common. I found it fascinating and I think it inspired me to start looking deeper at the world around me to try to see how things might be related. 

Last week, I went down to the National Gallery to see the Mark Rothko: Paintings on Paper show and the Dorothea Lange: Seeing People show. I’m a big fan of both, but as much as I love Rothko’s work—and have for years—I only really know the abstract paintings on canvas, not the earlier works on paper. It was really inspiring to see the different periods in his work, especially since we mostly know him for his large color field paintings. I had no idea that he started out painting landscapes and city scenes in watercolor, or that he did any figurative work at all. In a strange way it kind of humanized him for lack of a better word and maybe even made him more relatable as an artist. After all, I think most artists go through a variety of periods or phases where they’re trying to figure out a voice, a style, or a direction, but typically it’s only through books or retrospectives like this that we as viewers are allowed to see those periods in any sort of continuity. Most museum and gallery shows are focused more on displaying the hits because familiarity is often what gets people in the doors. But seeing just the hits without any context doesn’t allow the viewer to see the evolution or transformation that the work (or the artist) went through or when or even why some of those choices were made. For example, looking at Rothko’s early work, you can see the influences of artists like Cezanne, Miro, Matisse, and even Picasso, but they are all filtered through Rothko’s lens and come out the other side as something unique. If we only ever see the popular work—the hits—we miss out on significant milestones in the artist’s journey, which leaves us with an incomplete portrait of not just who they were, but also the why behind the work.

By the late 1940s, Rothko seems to have found the why that he would continue to explore for the rest of his life. Beginning in 1946 or 1947, he started moving away from the figurative and surrealist work and produced a group of paintings called Multiforms, which were basically the precursors to the large color field work that he is arguably most famous for. It’s certainly the work I know him for, or at least it was until I saw this show. 

In leaving the figurative work behind and moving more into abstraction, it feels as if Rothko was becoming more concerned with how the work “felt” rather than how it looked. I’m not saying that the aesthetics of the pieces weren’t important. Far from it. What I am saying is that in focusing on larger canvases, simple shapes, and very intentional color choices, it seems as if Rothko was looking for an emotional or psychological response from the viewer that comes from a deeper place than simply responding to an obvious scene or narrative. 

“A painting is not about an experience. It is an experience.”
—Mark Rothko

By contrast, the work in Dorothea Lange: Seeing People is all about narrative. Lange, along with other photographers including Walker Evans and Gordon Parks, was hired by the Farm Security Administration to photograph rural and urban conditions throughout the United States after the depression. While she had a background in portraiture, it was with the FSA where Lange really came into her own as a photojournalist and as a documentary photographer, a term which really didn’t exist before her. One of the reasons her work feels so personal is that she spent time talking to the people she photographed, establishing a rapport rather than just treating them as the subjects of an assignment. Lange was similar to Rothko in that she wanted the viewer to have an emotional response to the work. From what I read, she wasn’t interested in creating art, but in creating work that could spur social change—something that she championed throughout her career. In fact, if you want to read a terrific essay by Dorothea Lange and her son Daniel Dixon all about her thoughts on photography, pick up a copy of The Aperture Magazine Anthology. It’s a fantastic book with essays by Minor White, Ansel Adams, Garry Winogrand and a ton of other people. Unfortunately it’s currently out of stock from Aperture. In fact, it may even be out of print. Regardless, there are several copies available on AbeBooks and you can probably find a copy on eBay. The essay is called Photographing the Familiar and there’s an excerpt of it on the Aperture site, but I really do recommend picking up the book, especially if you’re a photographer or a fan of photography. Obviously I won’t read the whole thing, but there is one piece of it that I’d like to share—and keep in mind, this is from 1952. She writes:

“Ours is a time of the machine, and ours is a need to know that the machine can be put to creative human effort. If it is not, the machine can destroy us. It is within the power of the photographer to help prohibit this destruction, and help make the machine an agent of more good than of evil. Though not a poet, nor a painter, nor a composer, he is yet an artist, and as an artist undertakes not only risks but responsibility. And it is with responsibility that both the photographer and his machine are brought to their ultimate tests. His machine must prove that it can be endowed with the passion and the humanity of the photographer; the photographer must prove that he has the passion and the humanity with which to endow the machine.” Isn’t that lovely? 

I find it fascinating that two shows and two bodies of work that on the surface could not be more different—and maybe even opposite—from one another are chasing a similar goal: to capture or somehow express the fullness of the human experience and to have that experience seen and felt and on some deep level received by the viewer.

QUESTIONS
Is there a museum or gallery show that has affected you on a deep level? I’d love to hear from you. Hit reply, leave a comment, or email me at talkback@jefferysaddoris.com.

LINKS
Connections
James Burke Connections, Ep. 1 "The Trigger Effect"
Cosmos
Mark Rothko: Paintings on Paper
Mark Rothko: Early Years
Rothko’s Early Paintings Will Surprise You
Dorothea Lange: Seeing People
Dorothea Lange - MoMA
Dorothea Lange: 10 of the most iconic portraits from a lost US
The government photographer who gave a face to American poverty