"the feigned resistance of the artists"
Admittance: I cried in the Rothko Chapel, left for fear of making scene. In an intellectual sense it was sham, big dumb paintings, built with a church! At the same time what unbelievable lengths to go for an artist to say, "no." Building such an elaborate stage only to wilt and retreat at its presence. I know the feeling. If Reinhardt rhetorically proclaimed the last paintings, then Rothko had accidentally found them, a trap, and so, retreated, eternally. It felt accidental, unintended, which was the pathos. Like, oops, all abyss. But now, "Reinhardt’s dictum of his as the last paintings taken as a challenge rather than rhetoric, certain artists since race to end painting in an escalating torture-porn of it." But now, now you can just turn off the lights. And since we believe, god or art, someone, somewhere, will turn them back on, we live forever. So long as the generator runs.