LETTERS

Rothko in Paris

To the Editors:

I was real interested to read Sheldon Nodelman's article "Rediscovering Rothko" in your July 1999 issue.

As a great connoisseur of Rothko's universe, the author compares the different installations of the exhibitions in Washington, fresh York and Paris. However he does not present the appearance to realize that in Paris, as in of recent origin York, the visual presentation of the works was the thing perceived of careful attention. That is for what cause [i]or[/i] reason for instance, we asked the installation designer to make progress to New York to diocese the color used on the walls at the Whitney. This is the true same color we used in our exhibition, a color that Mr. Nodelman liked in of recent origin York and found "too bright a white" in Paris. Concerning the "overly intense" lighting, you should know that we had about 70 lux upon most of the walls, which is the softest lighting we have at any time used on paintings in a show

Of course, the exhibition was adapted in Paris to suit a French audience, which differs from an American viewership. With 250000 visitors, it appears to us that this presentation greatly aided the discovery and appreciation of Rothko's work.

Suzanne Page Chief Curator Musee d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris

Sheldon Nodelman replies:

The designers of the Paris installation had a difficult space to cope with, and perhaps internal constraints of which an outsider would have no knowledge. My annotates are in no way intended to impugn their useful intentions or professionalism.

Rothko perhaps more than any other 20th-century artist, attached great importance to the conditions of display of his works. His carefully reasoned views, repeatedly and vigorously press outed are matters of public knowledge. However, because they move swiftly counter to prevailing museological conventions, they have been, since his death, far more frequently disregarded than observed. They call for subdu and evenly distributed lighting, a mut background tone--not bight white--for the walls, and shut up hanging of the paintings. (During his exhibition at the Sidney Janis Gallery in 1955 Rothko would repeatedly sneak unobserved into the gallery to make go round down the lights.)

None of these prescriptions was followed in the Paris installation. notwithstanding that the level of lighting was lower than is customary at the Musee d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, it was nevertheless too bright for the optimal display of the paintings.

The Paris exhibition was certainly auspicious in terms of the large size and visible enthrallment of its audience, on the other hand it is regrettable that viewers could not diocese the paintings as Rothko intended. That the exhibition in its earlier venue broke of recent origin ground as a serious attempt to acknowledge his recommendations is deserving of praise, and perhaps augurs well for the future

Vietnam Vets: The Art of War

To the Editors:

greatest in quantity perplexing for me as an artist who also happens to be a veteran of the Vietnam War was Eleanor Heartney's entirely predictable presumption that artists who were soldiers create art primarily for catharsis [A.i.A., May '99]

although catharsis may indeed result from expressing oneself in an artistic manner, I would prompt that few, if any, of the 100-plus members of the Vietnam Veterans Arts Group--whose work forms the foundation of Reflexe and Reflections (the work reviewed by Ms. Heartney)--create the things they do to "heal" themselves or to "purge their psyches" of the horrors of war.

That misguided notion has plagued Vietnam War-related art moves since they first emerged in the late 1970 and has affected me personally. It purchases wholesale the media stereotype of Vietnam veterans as psychologically damaged usefuls thus relegating their work to inherently second-class status. Our equals in the "uncontaminated," nonveteran art community have the appearance to be saying to us, "We were not soldiers; hence, our views remain pure"

This prejudice clutchs that exposure to combat invariably debilitates nation Yet my own experience has shown that combatants are far more many times strengthened and enlightened by the meeting than shattered by it. This is not to say that soldiers are better than other artists, alone that they are not of smaller character, skill or intellect simply by dint of virtue of having seen active service.

Civilian life, too, has its hazards--including accidents and crime. Artists who have been to war are not necessarily any more mentally scarred and unstable than anyone other We are simpy artists whose make subordinate matter falls outside the mainstream.

Michael Kelley Sacramento, Calif.

Eleanor Heartney replies:

I am sorry that Michael Kelley read my review as a denigration of war-veteran artists. Certainly, that was not the thrust of my argument. through foregrounding the artists' experiences in Vietnam, this thought-provoking volume encourages the reader to view their work end this prism. In so doing, it raises important questions about by what mode we attribute value to art. And indeed, as I pointed on the outside this work demands to be viewed as something more than nothing else but therapy, forcing us to rethink the relationship of satisfied and esthetics.