A neutral, stripped-down space, conceived by the artist to welcome all the faiths of the world. A Zen-like place, where the artist has worked through subtraction, where the artist disappears and artistic language fades away. To make room for the unfathomable silence of meditation. For emptiness.
For some time now, contemporary art has been engaging with places that do not exist — blank canvases, motionless dancers. Like a zero point from which to be reborn, and upon which one learns to remain still, steady, in contemplation.
Thus, the Rothko Chapel is a symbol, a chapel set up in Houston, Texas, according to the plan of an irregular octagon by the great Russian-American painter Mark Rothko, containing inside 14 of his paintings. One of the founding principles with which the Chapel was conceived and designed is that of subtraction, so much so that for what it may remind one of the Christian side, the genius of the artist lies in having represented the cross without putting it there. Something Zen in short, but above all empty, something designed to accommodate. But after all, as Susan Barnes writes, Rothko Chapel is “the world’s first largely ecumenical center, a sacred place open to all religions but belonging to none. And so it has become a center for international cultural, religious and philosophical exchanges, for seminars and performances, and at the same time a place of private prayer for individuals of all faiths.” In this sense, art becomes a channel, an opportunity, a vehicle for expressing spirituality at 360 degrees. And the Rothko Chapel, a real postmodern temple, already ready for any contamination, designed to ideally accommodate any cult and try to give voice to a spirituality, new, free and nameless. This is the place where Cross wants to go ideally. When art is no longer art. It is no longer language, but essence, manifestation of being, with no more need to communicate.
There are also other examples in contemporary art history that can function equally as inspiration. We could start with Brancusi's sculptures or Barnett Newman's blank canvases, and anything that aspires to be a free sign, from everything in art that is close to zero.
An interesting void which Cross wants to explore. Starting from that force that certain contemporary art has had in not fleeing the abyss that the rubble of the avant-garde left behind, but trying to inhabit it. Let us try to come up on the other side, to start again on the other side of the canvas which Fontana pierced once, in a mad gesture. Let us start again from nothing, from that rubble that can be seen from another perspective and understood as a point of beginning. We are looking for crazy artists, who have the courage to dance on that rubble, and start all over again, for the sake of it, without leaving a trace, who have the courage to cross to the other side, dancing, in a breath of transcendence, for the sake of it, for that taste, that enchantment, which passes in a moment, like a mandala.
Cross is interested in change, in all the things that pass, transform, and don't stay. We are interested in the passing. The crossing of things. The white, the group dances, the declined verses, the new writings, those who dare to simply pass on. Cross is interested in those who dare to dance.
What matters about the Rothko Chapel is the space within, the traversable space, the work being made while being visited, almost inviting the audience to seek the sacred. Because Cross wants artists to make the sacred speak through their work. Cross wants artists to bring the sacred out of places: to make it felt. That's what we're going to deal with. Here, in writing, we have found it. The sacred. White. To begin again. Free. Empty.
A journey into the aura of key practices and figures of spirituality and performance art between body, gesture and vision.
Fondazione CROSS
Ente del Terzo Settore
Via Canton Sopra 2
28010 Nebbiuno (NO)
tel. +39 351 8081786
Email: info@crossproject.it
PEC: associazionelis@pec.it
P.IVA: 02272750031 | C.F.: 90013120036
A journey into the aura of key practices and figures of spirituality and performance art between body, gesture and vision.
