Rothko as Blockbuster – What Could It Mean?

“[T]hat it is Rothko, rather than say Vermeer or Monet, who will be pulling in the crowds from all over the country, seems to indicate an important shift in the cultural landscape. What is more, the men and women who will, from tomorrow, pour into Tate Modern to admire and wonder at Rothko’s work are not part of a suddenly expanded Modernist cognoscenti. Rather they are ordinary people who aspire to see more in his work than enormous, vaporous splurges of paint.”