ROHTKO

Fake is real 

Interview with Łukasz Twarkowski. In this interview, Twaskowski reflects on themes like the value of art, the tension between originals and copies, and the influence of digital art. Set in a Chinese restaurant and utilizing video as a powerful narrative tool, the production explores different perspectives on authenticity and creation.

How did ROHTKO start? 

When the Dailes Theatre in Riga gave me carte blanche to suggest a production, I happened to be in China, immersed in Byung-Chul Han’s Shanzai: Deconstruction in Chinese. This book addresses the different concepts of original and copy in the East and the West and was very helpful to me while finding my way in the working environment over there. It gave me an understanding of how to live with two utterly different paradigms. Mark Rothko had occurred to me before, because he is Latvian, but that is, how he weirdly came to me via China. The idea also stems from an exhibition I saw at the Museum of Art History in Vienna, which left me deeply disappointed. The concept was interesting – presenting Rothko's work in the historic halls of the museum with very little light, as he would have wanted it – but it didn't work, because those halls with their grandiose décor made it impossible to access his works. There were massive queues to see the exhibition and the crowd was excited, but I felt tricked. That is where I first began thinking about the art market: How is it possible to think you can create an event with nothing but good marketing, even if in reality there is nothing happening at all? 

This experience raises the question of the value we attribute to works of art… 

During the casting in Riga, the first thing people would mention when they started speaking about Rothko was their shock at having learnt that it was possible to pay forty or sixty million dollars for his paintings. In Latvia, Rothko is considered the greatest Latvian painter, but the prices for his paintings are by now almost more important than the content of his works. In the case of NFTs, which make it possible to buy digital art, it’s an even greater shock: How is it possible that the American artist Beeple sells his work for sixty-nine million dollars when it is only a digital file that can easily be copied? Everyone could own the same file, but there is only one original, because that one a certificate, an NFT. That one is worth sixty-nine million dollars, while the one next to it, which is exactly the same, is not worth anything because it is just a copy. At first sight that seems absurd, but a closer look reveals that is not so new at all. Throughout the history of art, the focus has been on the symbolic value – take Duchamp’s urinal. The value that we attach to a work rests on a particular social contract; that is not so very different in the digital age. 

How did you link digital art and the book by Byung-Chul Han? 

According to Byung-Chul Han, the two Chinese signs that would be translated as 'original' in English literally translate as 'authentic trace'. In Chinese art history, copies have often surpassed the originals in value, as they were considered better crafted or more faithful to the underlying idea. For the Chinese, the original is only the trace or the reflection of an idea. During my first visit to China, I couldn’t fathom how it was possible to visit 'ancient' sites that weren't ancient at all in reality. They are right in the middle of modern cities and it is immediately clear that they are not original but simply built in 'ancient style'. However, when I asked the Chinese, they answered: 'It's exactly like it used to be at the time.' In Japan there also is a temple that's completely dismantled and rebuilt every twenty years: the Grand Shrine of Ise. When this became known in the West, the temple was struck of the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites. The reasoning behind it is firstly, to pass craftsmanship on to the next generation, including that of objects inside, and secondly, in order to prevent the temple being destroyed by the ravages of time, and to keep it as close as possible to its original condition. When Chinese people visit Europe, they do not understand why we keep our Acropolis in ruins, why Notre-Dame is so dirty. For them, a building that is being destroyed by the passage of time no longer has anything in common with the original, meaning with the moment at which the work came closest to the ideas of its creator. All of this means that Eastern culture had essentially been ready for the arrival of digital art for centuries. While we in the West have a sentimental attachment to material things, while they live in a world where the idea is what counts. The digital age and NFT's mean that the material loses its value in favour of the virtual. In the Western world, we have a huge problem with digital art because we are thrown by the lack of a difference between original and copy. If a perfect copy can be made, there is nothing inherent to the work itself that guarantees that the original truly is the original. From the Asian point of view, however, that is not a problem because works have always been like that. It’s logical! 

Is the fact that the play is set in a Chinese restaurant instead of a museum or a gallery a reference to all these thoughts? 

The Chinese restaurant is connected to the main character, a Chinese migrant. It also has to do with Mr Chow, a historic restaurant where a particular generation of the New York avant-garde such as Jean-Michel Basquiat and Andy Warhol used to meet. That is only alluded to, because it wasn’t opened until after Rothko's death. Also, this setting was perfect for posing the question of original and replica, because all Chinese restaurants in the world are more or less replicas of each other. You will find the same menus, the same decor and the same lanterns... As if the restaurant wasn’t really attached to its location and was easily duplicated. In this sense, a Chinese restaurant is a no man’s land, an anti-hierarchical space. That made it the ideal meeting point. This is where people at different points of their careers, from different places in the world of art, ranging from prospective artists to museum directors, might meet. 

The text was written by Anka Herbut, who is a long-time close collaborator of yours. Could you tell us something about this writer? How do you work together? 

Anka Herbut and I met during my third play, Farinelli. Since then, we have worked together on a lot of projects, in theatre as well as exhibitions, video art, etc. I was immediately drawn to her interdisciplinary approach. She is a dramaturge in the German sense of the word, but she is also a writer and she is equally interested in dance. When we work, we have the same method: we focus on the process. We never start with a finished text, but with a laboratory situation in which we improvise with the actors or explore the work with the camera. There follows a break, during which we work on the text. In the end, we try to find a theatrical hybrid between visual art, film and dance… The text is one of the ingredients of the drama, it is neither more nor less important.

The cinema takes up a lot of room on stage: three screens are projecting different kinds of images. Can you say something about your use of video? 

Video has been a part of our work for fifteen years and it always takes a different form. ROHTKO is probably our most cinematographic work for theatre. I’ve always asked myself: what is the connection we can establish with an image, either in film or photography? How is narrative altered once the image enters the stage, because it entails a different view of the world, a different illusion? In some way, it is magical. You capture something at a single moment and this excerpt of reality holds the promise of the infinite scope of the depicted world. On stage, we only have that which is shown here and now, but the filmed image makes a promise of everything that is hidden, everything that is outside of the frame: that it doesn’t end there. In ROHTKO, the cinematic narrative invites us to believe there’s more, even as we witness its creation on stage. This tension explores the concept of original versus copy, truth versus falsehood ('fake is real'), which lies at the heart of the play.

Interview by Raphaëlle Tchamitchian, on September 28th, 2023, for l'Odéon-Théâtre de l'Europe