The Locusts Are Coming.

Get out the bug spray. The locusts are coming. The apocalypse has arrived.

I saw the sign: A Mark Rothko painting has just sold for 73 million dollars at auction. It is the second highest amount ever paid for a modern art painting.

Are you f@$#ing kidding me?

"Which painting?" you ask. Is it the one with the large square or the other one with the large square or the other one with the large square or the one with the large square? Oh wait -- maybe it's the one with the large square.

Exactly.

(If you think I'm kidding, do a Google image search on Mark Rothko.)

I've railed against Mark Rothko many times in this journal. I believe that peoples' affection and museums' embrace of him are simply a conspiracy to piss me off. I don't get it.

I love to hear people tell me how amazing a painter he is. How his colors undulate and squares are windows to different places and the heavy and deep meaning contained within its simple design.

Fine. I'll buy any argument for one painting.

But he did the exact same painting for twenty years. When you repeat yourself for that long, it starts being about something else.

Perhaps, that you can't draw.

If he was a photographer he'd be taking photos of babies dressed up like flowers or dogs dressed up like people. Wait? There are already photographers doing those two themes? Damn.

The good and bad of Rothko: If you've seen one Rothko painting, you've truly seen them all. Is that an artist you want to promote? How did this happen?

"Warhol did the same thing," you say. Yep, he did. He extensively reproduced an image with slight variations. But you see, he was mocking mass production. He was mocking the consumer.

Perhaps this is my problem. I feel that Rothko is mocking us.