About
Bronze unifies the thing. It abstracts the forms from the material. People want to know about what the material constituents are; it helps them identify the work with something. But I want each sculpture to be seen as a whole, as a sculpture.
—Cy Twombly
Gagosian is pleased to present an exhibition of new bronze sculptures by Cy Twombly, coinciding with the inauguration of Gagosian’s Athens gallery with Leaving Paphos Ringed with Waves, an exhibition of the artist’s new paintings. Two major museum exhibitions—Cy Twombly: The Natural World, Selected Works 2000–2007, which inaugurated the new wing of the Art Institute of Chicago, and Cy Twombly: Sensations of the Moment at Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien, Vienna—are on view through October 2009.
Since 1946 Twombly has fashioned sculptures from everyday materials and objects, usually painted with white gesso. In 1979 he began casting some of them in bronze, thus unifying, preserving, and transforming them into cohesive wholes independent from the original bricolages. The surfaces and patinas of these cast bronzes evoke weathered artifacts that have been exhumed from the earth, an effect that is heightened in those that have been coated in white oil paint.
Some of these sculptures contain allusions to the static, closed forms of Egyptian and Mesopotamian sculpture, as well as to other architectural and geometric references such as the repetition of rectangular pedestals and circular structures. Others refer to historical representations, such as Untitled (The Mathematical Dream of Ashurbanipal) (2000–09), which alludes to the scholarly Assyrian king whose military prowess was the subject of a rival king’s dream in which his eventual submission to Assyria was predicted. While the components of these sculptures have been partially merged and abstracted by the casting process, in works such as Untitled (2004–09) a progression of precariously balanced objects—in this case, a broom inside a funnel that rests on a cylindrical pedestal—is clearly demarcated. Twombly’s continued play between fragility and obduracy, figuration and abstraction, ancient and modern imbues each work with its characteristic tension.
The exhibition will be accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue with an essay by Kate Nesin.
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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.
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.
Say Goodbye, Catullus, to the Shores of Asia Minor
Thierry Greub tracks the literary references in Cy Twombly’s epic painting of 1994.
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.
Twombly and the Poets
Anne Boyer, the inaugural winner of the Cy Twombly Award in Poetry, composes a poem in response to Twombly’s Aristaeus Mourning the Loss of His Bees (1973) and introduces a portfolio of the painter’s works accompanied by the poems that inspired them.
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.