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Cy Twombly

A Gathering of Time

May 12–July 21, 2003
980 Madison Avenue, New York

Cy Twombly: A Gathering of Time Installation view

Cy Twombly: A Gathering of Time

Installation view

Cy Twombly: A Gathering of Time Installation view

Cy Twombly: A Gathering of Time

Installation view

Cy Twombly: A Gathering of Time Installation view

Cy Twombly: A Gathering of Time

Installation view

About

Gagosian is pleased to present an exhibition in celebration of Cy Twombly’s seventy-fifth birthday. On view will be six new paintings and a sculpture.

The six paintings, all from 2003, were painted in Twombly’s home state of Virginia. While his recent work has been based on historical events, this sublime group of paintings shows a move towards abstraction, a play with color and light.

The sculpture follows in the tradition of some of the artist’s early assemblages dating back to the 1950s. Like them, this sculpture is composed of everyday found items arranged in the form of magical or fetishistic objects and covered with a uniform coat of white paint. The original meaning of the individual found objects is blurred, and the work recalls a wide range of cultural associations.

One of the essential artists of our time, Cy Twombly’s work can be found in various important museum and private collections. The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia, will open a retrospective of the last fifty years of his drawings on July 8, 2003.

A fully illustrated catalogue with an essay by Linda Norden will accompany the exhibition.

Image of Cy Twombly's Treatise on the Veil (Second Version), 1970

Cy Twombly: Imperfect Paradise

Eleonora Di Erasmo, cocurator of Un/veiled: Cy Twombly, Music, Inspirations, a program of concerts, video screenings, and works by Cy Twombly at the Fondazione Nicola Del Roscio, Rome, reflects on the resonances and networks of inspiration between the artist and music. The program was the result of an extensive three-year study, done at the behest of Nicola Del Roscio in the Rome and Gaeta offices of the Cy Twombly Foundation, intended to collect, document, and preserve compositions by musicians around the world who have been inspired by Twombly’s work, or to establish an artistic dialogue with them.

Black and white image of the interior of Cy Twombly’s apartment in Rome

Cy Twombly: Making Past Present

In 2020, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, announced their plan for a survey of Cy Twombly’s artwork alongside selections from their permanent ancient Greek and Roman collection. The survey was postponed due to the lockdowns necessitated by the coronavirus pandemic, but was revived in 2022 with a presentation at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles from August 2 through October 30. In 2023, the exhibition will arrive at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. The curator for the exhibition, Christine Kondoleon, and Kate Nesin, author of Cy Twombly’s Things (2014) and advisor for the show, speak with Gagosian director Mark Francis about the origin of the exhibition and the aesthetic and poetic resonances that give the show its title: Making Past Present.

Cy Twombly, Untitled (Say Goodbye, Catallus, to the Shores of Asia Minor), 1994, oil, acrylic, oil stick, crayon, and graphite on three canvases,

Say Goodbye, Catullus, to the Shores of Asia Minor

Thierry Greub tracks the literary references in Cy Twomblys epic painting of 1994.

Carrie Mae Weems’s The Louvre (2006), on the cover of Gagosian Quarterly, Summer 2021

Now available
Gagosian Quarterly Summer 2021

The Summer 2021 issue of Gagosian Quarterly is now available, featuring Carrie Mae Weems’s The Louvre (2006) on its cover.

Cy Twombly, Untitled, 1990, acrylic, wax crayon, and pencil on handmade paper, 30 ⅝ × 21 ⅝ inches (77.8 × 54.8 cm)

Twombly and the Poets

Anne Boyer, the inaugural winner of the Cy Twombly Award in Poetry, composes a poem in response to TwomblyAristaeus Mourning the Loss of His Bees (1973) and introduces a portfolio of the painters works accompanied by the poems that inspired them.

Gerhard Richter’s Helen (1963) on the cover of Gagosian Quarterly, Spring 2021

Now available
Gagosian Quarterly Spring 2021

The Spring 2021 issue of Gagosian Quarterly is now available, featuring Gerhard Richter’s Helen (1963) on its cover.