No.11 1963

Here is Mark Rothko’s No. 11, but I don’t know when exactly he made it, or even how big it is, but it’s got these hazy blocks of color – peach, creamsicle, tangerine – floating on top of each other. It looks like it came into being layer by layer, shift by shift, until Rothko felt it was complete. I can imagine him standing back, squinting, maybe tilting his head like a confused dog, trying to feel if the painting was working, if it was saying something true. I'm sure Rothko was aware of all the other color field painters working at the time, like Barnett Newman and Helen Frankenthaler. They were all pushing painting in new directions, trying to find ways to express big ideas with simple forms. That horizontal white band reminds me of Agnes Martin too, who was able to do so much with so little. Painting is just this ongoing exchange, where artists are always riffing off each other, picking up on ideas, and pushing them further. It's about embracing ambiguity and uncertainty and allowing for multiple interpretations, and that’s where the magic happens.