Bagged Rothko 1965

Iain Baxter& made "Bagged Rothko," and well, it's pretty much what it sounds like! But why? We get so used to seeing art in museums, we can forget that it's made of stuff, you know, matter. Here, Baxter& treats Rothko's rectangles of colour as mere objects. It's like they’re saying, "Hey, let’s take these iconic paintings and shrink wrap ‘em!" The plastic is shiny and bright pink. It's like, packaging a feeling. Look closely, and you can see all the little wrinkles and creases, trapping the air inside. And the way the plastic clings, distorts, flattens, and renders the image… It's less about reverence and more about poking fun at the art world's obsession with the aura of the original. This reminds me of some of Elaine Sturtevant's work, where she remade other artists' famous works in order to question the ideas around originality and authorship. It shows how art is always in conversation with itself, always borrowing and remixing. Isn’t that a hoot?