Self-Portrait Without a Bicycle

The concept of fugitive color was popularized by a controversy in the late 80s, when a series of faultily conserved Rothko paintings at Harvard University were displayed after their colors had faded irreparably. The incident brought bad press to both the university and to the contemporary art world, because some experimental painters (especially Rothko) had failed to pay suitable attention to the durability of their creations. Fugitive pigment became a metaphor used to describe (and occasionally malign) the aesthetic of impermanence that plays a vital role in contemporary experimental art. Now associated with installation artists like Tara Donovan.