My sort-of useless college degree is in Art History, which I don’t regret at all because I enjoyed the classes so much, and it introduced me to so many artists that I still find meaningful to this day. Like the abstract painter Mark Rothko. Seeing pictures of Rothkos doesn’t really do them justice; they’re very large works, and when you’re in front of one it’s a completely different experience as you get pulled into and absorbed by these vast areas of blurry-edged color, your perception reduced to this chromatic experience, lost in it and also guided by the choices of the artist. I love them. And, even better, I think you can argue that Rothko did many paintings of taillights.
Like up top there; that’s a box taillight, from a Jeep or delivery truck or even, singly, a Corbin Sparrow.
It was the Bishop who first put this idea into my head, and now I can’t shake it; I’m not sure Rothko was aware he was painting taillights, but I think he almost certainly was, deep, deep down. Even more remarkable is that the taillights he was painting seem to be ones from a decade or more after the times he painted them, so I think he was getting some sort of visions from a taillight future, perhaps from that mystical Dimension Taillight that must exist somewhere in the spectrum of the universe, where taillight light and souls are formed.
Anyway, if you look for Rothkos with red, orange, yellow in the title, you’ll find taillight paintings. Sometimes, even recognizable ones. Like how this one, Orange and Yellow, a 1950s-era work, looks like a Yugo taillight:
…or maybe this 1958 piece, Number 13, which predicts the Peugeot 504 Wagon’s taillight color order with shocking accuracy:
…and then there’s Yellow, Cherry, Orange from 1947, feeling a lot like a Suzuki Etseem taillight, perhaps seen through a rainy windshield on a cold night:
… and the 1950 work White Center (Yellow, Pink, and Lavender on Rose) suggests a faded Volvo 140 taillight or perhaps a 140 taillight with the brake light illuminated, blowing the red into a more pinkish hue:
There’s so many, and we could go on and on, and I encourage you to do just that in lieu of work today. It’ll be enriching to some deep part of your soul that you don’t even have a name for, I promise.
Also, remember, just like taillights, Rothkos can’t really be captured in photographs. They’re best experienced live, so I encourage anyone who is near a museum or gallery with a real, full-size Rothko to seek it out, and just stand in front of it for a while, looking, really looking, not at, but into.
Same goes for the next taillights you see, too.
I prefer Van Gogh’s van-go piece which he painted when he lived in a van DOWN BY THE RIVER!
I love this concept, torch.
You should really bust out an Autopian Art History Tie-In from time to time!
We’re talking Rothko Taillights, Varo Mystic-Cycles, Warhol Car Crash What Car Is It, etc…
This is why I always come back to The Autopian.
I have always felt that the people who don’t get Rothko just haven’t seen any of the work in person.
On a related note, I was saddened to find out the chapel is closed and will likely be torn down, if it hasn’t already been. It apparently sustained heavy hurricane damage and is considered unrecoverable.
God dammit I love this place
Hmm, when I think tail lights Adolph Gottlieb comes to mind, but I come from the round tail lights era.
I love Rothko and i love this
I’d like to see an older Benz with the standup hood ornament replaced by a big chrome version of an Ed Ruscha “OOF”.
Ruscha’s “12 Sunsets” is a great source for pics of street-parked classic cars when they were daily drivers. Between 1965 and 2007 he drove the length of – originally just the Sunset Strip, starting in 1973 the entire length of Sunset Boulevard from Downtown LA to PCH – with a camera tripod in the bed of a pickup, constantly taking pictures of both sides of the street. Sort of an analog Google Streetview and he probably only stopped because Streetview effectively obsoleted it.
I’ve seen that in the past year. Very nice.
I had to write a paper on Rothko’s work that was hanging in the Milwaukee Art Museum once upon a time (maybe 2010?) (Green, Red, Blue) That was three pages of the most mundane interpretation of two primary colors and one secondary color that i think i’m still dealing with the after effects of brain cell death.
i didnt know you were an art history major though, im sure college was definitely a more fun time for you than it was for me
This totally blows away Monet’s tie-rod phase.
What a fantasy world he painted, where any shadetree mechanic could unwind the set nut with a languid flick of the wrench. Me, I moved up through (with ample PB Blaster and swearing) wrench, adjustable crescent, slip joint pliers, propane torch, and I finally cut the goddamn thing off with an angle grinder. After I did that, I put it in the bench vise just to see if I could break it loose. I could not.
Fuckin Impressionists, man.
I don’t get the appeal of Rothko
its harmless – hotel lobby shit. I dont get the worship, like many abstractionists I feel like he is only famous because he is the first one to do it.
They don’t really work in reproduction the way the do when you are in the room with them. There’s a lot going on in the physical object.
On the other hand, there is certainly a cult.
Fortunately, Rothko isn’t all that popular, I don’t think the paintings would work in a crowded room very well.
I’ve seen a few in person and they still are entirely uninteresting
You Sir have the makings of an art dealer. All that is required for seemingly worthless doodles, scribbles, and paint barfs is a plausible explanation of its relevance, and a wealthy dupe.
In the bowels of an automaker’s design studio, an otherwise unemployable art history grad was given a seemingly benign task to design taillights. Digging out hangover-infused memories of that segment on Mark Rothko, the ne’er-do-well illustrator puts paint to paper and creates bi-color and even tri-color masterpieces that will revolutionize the vehicle visibility industry. A designer is born.
Thank heavens he wasn’t a Picasso buff.
Toyota hired that guy for the previous generation Prius.
Or the more illuminated Seurat or Luce.
Or worse, a Pollock fan.
Hey Pollock rules OK?
Eh, if I’m forced to pick an abstract artist, it is going to be Mondrian.
Well, now I can’t unsee that. Was Rothko a founding member of the taillight enthusiast club?
Constable’s ‘The Hay Wain’ is massive and it’s an actual picture. 😉
But yes, seeing large works of art up close and discerning the mechanical process of applying paint is fascinating.
I did a study on Mark Rothko during college, so your article stirred a lot of fond memories. So, are the Rothko Chapel works a prophetic anticipation of tinted taillights?
What happened to the Rothko chapel makes me so sad.
This is both the beauty and horror of a liberal arts education.
Nah. Beauty all the way.