Rothko's black paintings stir up discussion about skin color

On Sunday, Washington Post art critic Blake Gopnik wrote about the rehanging of Mark Rothko's black paintings.  Interestingly, Gopnik dwells on skin color as he contemplates the works. 

Gopnik writes: "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 goes on to say:

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. 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.

Some have taken offense HERE (in the comments) and HERE and accused Gopnik of being racist.

I think Gopnik's review is not so much racist and mostly just awkward. I'm really fascinated by skin color and its many shades. I stood in front of Byron Kim's "Synecdoche" for a long time a couple months ago staring at all the different skin tones represented by each square and was absoutely amazed at the number of variations!

I often think about my own skin color as a half-Asian and how it affected me as I was growing up as one of only two Asian kids in my school in suburban Richmond, Virginia. My little brother was the other Asian kid! When we got to high school, a group of Cambodian kids moved into our neighborhood; a local Catholic Church had plunked them down there directly from Cambodia. One of my teachers implored me to help them transition into their new environment. At the time, I was horrified!  First, I didn't speak their language. I didn't speak any language but English at the time, and then I later studied French and Spanish. I grew up in an American suburban wasteland watching reruns of Brady Bunch and Happy Days and hanging out with my friends in the parking lot of the nearby Friendly's restaurant for crying out loud! Basically I was a pretty typical bored American teen who happened to have squinty eyes and skin that tanned easily.  Second, my racist Vietnamese mother would have yelled at me for hanging out with Cambodians. She once complained in utter disgust that my skin was getting too dark after I'd spent a long summer mostly at the pool. She said I looked like a Cambodian!  The horror.

I don't brood about my skin color as much now as when I was a self-conscious teen back in the 80s. I am more comfortable in my own skin, but that doesn't mean I don't think about it.  I even bought art by a California artist named Stella Lai a few years that explores the way Asian women today lighten their skin and have cosmetic surgery to make themselves appear more Caucasian.

Enough about me.  Back to Gopnik.  I think it can be very relevant to talk about issues of skin color when you're talking about art, especially when the work is obviously about skin color. Duh. In this case, however, the black paintings are not about skin tone, but are an exploration of color, and I still think it can be relevant to talk about skin color when talking about color in general. I like that Gopnik connects his thinking about color to something in the real world. For a minute, he strays away from the usual hi-falutin' academic art analysis and gives us something we can relate to. Maybe it was a little awkwardly presented but I found it interesting. I wonder how I'd feel though if Gopnik reviewed the yellow in this Rothko and talked about how it made him think about the Chinese restaurant he ate at last night.