The LACMA experience was unexpectedly amazing. After almost two months of classes, I know how to apply the abstract ideas and descriptions we learned in class to the actual appreciation. I never had so much fun in any art museum before and never had I paid such attention to each artist’s brush stroke. LACMA did well on making people to experience and interact with art without having a solid background in art history.

 

One of the art piece that I was especially intrigued by is White Center, created by Mark Rothko in 1957. It is partially related to Expressionism that we talked about on class, however not exactly the same. This painting is under the category of Abstract Expressionism. The two “isms” shared some common ideologies, for instance both Expressionists and Abstract Expressionists believed that art could express the truth of the human condition.(Phillips p34) However, Abstract Expressionism is less objective and figurative. White Center only has two colors on the canvas, and the color pattern is similar to the stop sign which metaphorically made me stop in front of it. From my perspective, the two shades of red imply the chaos and disorder in the outside world that surrounds us everyday, whereas the center’s whiteness imply the calmness inside the painter’s mind.

 

The redness gets more intense in the center which seems to me that is pressuring the whiteness in the middle. Mark Rothko blurred the edges of each shade of red to make it looks less aggressive. This painting perfectly conveys the original feeling and mood of Mark Rothko as if the viewers could read his mind through only two colors.

 

This painting also related to my experience in Breathing Lights, which is a huge surprise of this trip. Both of them can help me meditate and think more deeply about what art is in real life.