Conversations with American Artists: Brice Marden discusses Mark Rothko

Brice Marden inaugurated the “American Artist Lecture Series” at the Tate Modern Museum in London on May 14, 2012. He is shown speaking with Marjorie Susman, wife of U.S. Ambassador to the UK Louis Susman, about the “ART in Embassies” (AIE) exhibition of modern art at Winfield House, the Ambassador’s official residence in London. In celebration of AIE’s 50 years of international cultural exchange, the American Artists Lecture Series is a collaborative partnership between the U.S. Department of State’s Office of AIE, the Tate Modern, and the U.S. Embassy in London.

Full Transcript

0:07 pictures
0:08 must be miraculous mark Roscoe
0:14 alright so here we have marvelous Mark Rothko
0:19 what intrigues you about his work your office the painter
0:24 unafraid talking about the spiritual mystical
0:28 no idea someone
0:31 they just incredibly beautiful painting
0:34 Union assisting Greece in me9
0:41 with that much the Thunder and every month
0:44 all stop happen am
0:48 lose certain place to go. know who all look over at the Rothko part because one
0:54 part was always seem to be some variation
0:56 or of the time it is these colors and the
0:59 wonderful have and I ID gave a talk to the rocker chapel
1:03 last year the the thing that I
1:06 you came to realize that working out hanno
1:10 in control he wants in love
1:13 you know what he was making looking and that thing ever
1:17 doing on this research thing you know the pain he was doing at that time
1:21 where he went on to the was no doubt in my mind that he knew exactly what he was
1:26 doing and he knew here really nailed it
1:28 the fact that he always wanted his paintings hung
1:32 with nobody else’s work Demian
1:35 you like a while like gallery with only his paintings I was like it was a shrine
1:40 I’m aside that was a you know I’m religious
1:44 kinda wanted to be a religious experience we’re looking at his
1:48 paintings
1:48 and wonder what he would think if you saw it here
1:52 yeah well one thing he said his
1:56 they ask them what is the preferred
1:59 viewing distance he said seven inches to
2:03 so he wouldn’t he and you see like the progressive him standing really close
2:08 looking at paintings
2:10 and if you you in toy every time
2:13 I get a chance that you know the rock though I go and look at it from services
2:18 in
2:18 it becomes this you’re absorbed into your
2:22 you know you are you are any when
2:26 and it makes this it makes a certain kind
2:31 um make the third for goes on beyond being a picture
2:34 you know and UNMC the abstract effective a very involved with that whole life
2:43 idea of not being pictorial
2:45 bone but
2:48 United really works 7-inch grows been fun to live with them I must
2:55 you to share them I magnin
2:58 mission is used to have them in in a in-house
3:01 in not in a museum yeah
3:05 he was a real real great
3:08 painter in