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Redding: Washington Post art critic must apologize for comparing empty paintings to black people
By Robert "Rob" Redding Jr.
Editor & Publisher
"Of course, when Mark Rothko painted these works in 1964, he didn't have the skin of African Americans in mind. I'm suggesting that we might want to as we look today," Gopnik wrote.
He explained how black, as a color, is typically conveyed in the art world as: "Emptiness of Being or some such thing" or a "placeholder for something else."
He then opines, "we have an almost moral imperative to go beyond our cliches about what blackness means."
"As I stood watching Rothko's works, I noticed that I was being watched in turn -- by two African American security guards, both in regulation blue-black suits and both with notably dark complexions," he writes. "And it suddenly seemed wrong to reduce the complex color of their skin -- or, for that matter, of any color out there in the world -- to a single formulaic reading. These guards, happily protecting the works under their care, certainly didn't stand for existential angst, or for a depressive mood, any more than the pervasive blacks and charcoals in the clothing of many of my fellow visitors -- tones which these Rothkos helped me notice more than before -- said anything about their brains' serotonin levels. If anything, these paintings risk coming off as almost too stylish for their own good: Like an elegant Armani suit on a gorgeous woman, they are more likely to leave you smiling than blue."
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I have several issues with this
review. One comes as an abstract artist and the other comes as a black
journalist.
Lets go with the art stuff first. I think black is a wonderful color - and
yes it is a color - no matter what the art world says. Black is not a
placeholder and it is not empty. Sometimes black is the statement.
As a black journalist, I find it disturbing that Gopnik decides to needlessly inject race into his art review. Gopnik points out the race of the "notably dark" guards after he says that race should be considered when viewing Rothko's works.
"And it suddenly seemed wrong to reduce the complex color of their skin -- or, for that matter, of any color out there in the world -- to a single formulaic reading. These guards, happily protecting the works under their care, certainly didn't stand for existential angst...."
What would he write if the guards were not so nice?
His juxtaposition of the color black in art as being an empty "placeholder" with the concept that the "notably dark" guards seemed to be full of life and happy is odd, offensive and outrageously inappropriate.
I am not sure how this review got past The Washington Post's copy desk but it has undoubtedly diminished the quality of this once venerable publication. I demand an apology and investigation.
(Robert "Rob" Redding Jr. is the artist responsible for Smear Painting, editor and publisher of ReddingNewsReview.com and a syndicated talk radio show host).
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