So, one of the surprising gems that shone out of the debacle of the foot or more of snow and the failed/cancelled Daemen College Anime Club’s Neo NohCon in Buffalo, NY this past weekend was the show at the Albright-Knox Gallery called Remix Color and Light. (That is, of course, in addition to meeting some really interesting and devoted young students and professionals. I really do miss the excitement of my interactions with students. I think Brent does, too, since he was quick to jump into his “professor” role with a painting student in the studio at Daemen. But, then, does he ever not?)

Like the exhibit at Moma it was about color, and like that show the curator seems to have been confused about what she had actually created. Purportedly it “was conceived as an opportunity to muse on color and light. It highlights the variety of ways we use and interpret color, from the personal and emotional to the intellectual and historical.” But it was so much more, and, in my opinion, put the Moma show to shame. The operant word was remix. What the curator was able to so beautifully accomplish with works from their collection was to highlight a particular work, with color as the main criterion, and then to surround that work with other works that, as Hoagy Carmichael might say, “accentuate the positive.” The viewer was then compelled to see not only the central work but also each of the other works with entirely new insight. The museum’s website fails to demonstrate, and for me to try to reproduce the effect would be an act of futility, but in a way the juxtaposition of my kimono scarf and the Rothko (above and below) demonstrate.

Mark Rothko
Untitled (Seagram Mural), 1959
Gift of The Mark Rothko Foundation, Inc.
Copyright © 1997 Christopher Rothko and Kate Rothko Prizel
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC