If there’s one exhibition for your radar right now it’s Mark Rothko at Fondation Louis Vuitton, with dates now extending to April 2024. The first Rothko retrospective in France since that held at the Musée d’Art moderne de la Ville de Paris in 1999, the exhibition was co-commissioned by his son Christopher and explores the untold story behind the late artist’s iconic abstract paintings, told through some 115 works.  

Stepping inside the Fondation, designed by LA-based architect Frank Gehry and opened in October 2014, a timeline of Rothko’s life begins in the Russian Empire before a bursary at Yale brought him stateside. The ‘classic’ Rothko on show reflects the latter half of his post-war work, to which he transitioned after a hiatus in painting, in which he spent writing The Artist’s Reality (published posthumously in 2004). Included are iconic pieces such as ‘Shades of Red, 1961,’ the inspiration behind London Tate and D.C. Philip’s Galleries' ‘Rothko Rooms’ - dedicated meditative spaces playing to the melodic rhythms of Rothko’s carefully proportioned works that inflict what some characterise as ‘public hypnosis.’ 

A long awaited opportunity for the President of Fondation Louis Vuitton Bernard Arnault, the retrospective commemorates Rothko’s “ability to grasp the competing motivations of the existential and mystical elements at play,” he says. Consider for yourself at the Louis Vuitton Foundation.