Because working in sports for 30 years leaves very little time for cultural sidesteps, two years ago, a colleague of mine and myself decided to treat ourselves with a Museum card which gives you free entrance to the many museums that Holland has. A cultural crash course so to say.
And yes we visited quite a lot of very nice museum learned a lot and some breathtaking pieces of art and history.
This weekend, while being there for visiting family, I went to the Gemeentemuseum in The Hague, which hosted a Mark Rothko exhibition. Mark Rothko has become very popular the last couple of years and if you want to buy one of his best works, please bring a big suitcase full of money, e.g. his painting called “No.1” costed 75 million dollars.
At the entrance of the rooms of his work were board saying that some people experienced near religious experience watching his paintings or people started to cry.
Since I had seen Rothko’s work, not knowing it was his’ , I entered the rooms full of expectations, but I thought it was a kind of a disappointment.
I have seen more appealing work of myself in kindergarten and it was produced a lot faster and less expensive. Just Google Mark Rothko, and take look at his paintings and you get what I mean.
So, no religious experience for me (don’t need it anyway), no tears from emotions, I was closer to crying from laughter about the visitors staring for minutes at his paintings, probably hoping for that religious experience. It completely escaped me.
I had the same feeling before while watching Barnett Newman’s “Cathedra”.
Yes, probably I have to admit that I am indeed a cultural barbarian, almost feeling somewhat guilty about not seeing something very, very special in Rothko’s work, but hey, here’s more art to be seen.
