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Cy Twombly

Leaving Paphos Ringed with Waves

September 25–December 19, 2009
Merlin Street, Athens

Installation view Artwork © Cy Twombly Foundation. Photo: Costas Picadas

Installation view

Artwork © Cy Twombly Foundation. Photo: Costas Picadas

Installation view Artwork © Cy Twombly Foundation. Photo: Costas Picadas

Installation view

Artwork © Cy Twombly Foundation. Photo: Costas Picadas

Installation view Artwork © Cy Twombly Foundation. Photo: Costas Picadas

Installation view

Artwork © Cy Twombly Foundation. Photo: Costas Picadas

Installation view with Cy Twombly, Leaving Paphos Ringed with Waves (IV) (2009) Artwork © Cy Twombly Foundation. Photo: Costas Picadas

Installation view with Cy Twombly, Leaving Paphos Ringed with Waves (IV) (2009)

Artwork © Cy Twombly Foundation. Photo: Costas Picadas

Installation view Photo: Costas Picadas

Installation view

Photo: Costas Picadas

Works Exhibited

Cy Twombly, Leaving Paphos Ringed with Waves (I), 2009 Acrylic on canvas, 105 ¼ × 83 ⅝ inches (267.4 × 212.3 cm)© Cy Twombly Foundation

Cy Twombly, Leaving Paphos Ringed with Waves (I), 2009

Acrylic on canvas, 105 ¼ × 83 ⅝ inches (267.4 × 212.3 cm)
© Cy Twombly Foundation

Cy Twombly, Leaving Paphos Ringed with Waves (II), 2009 Acrylic on canvas, 105 ¼ × 83 ⅝ inches (267.4 × 212.3 cm)© Cy Twombly Foundation

Cy Twombly, Leaving Paphos Ringed with Waves (II), 2009

Acrylic on canvas, 105 ¼ × 83 ⅝ inches (267.4 × 212.3 cm)
© Cy Twombly Foundation

Cy Twombly, Leaving Paphos Ringed with Waves (III), 2009 Acrylic on canvas, 105 ¼ × 83 ⅝ inches (267.4 × 212.3 cm)© Cy Twombly Foundation

Cy Twombly, Leaving Paphos Ringed with Waves (III), 2009

Acrylic on canvas, 105 ¼ × 83 ⅝ inches (267.4 × 212.3 cm)
© Cy Twombly Foundation

Cy Twombly, Leaving Paphos Ringed with Waves (IV), 2009 Acrylic on canvas, 105 ¼ × 83 ⅝ inches (267.4 × 212.3 cm)© Cy Twombly Foundation

Cy Twombly, Leaving Paphos Ringed with Waves (IV), 2009

Acrylic on canvas, 105 ¼ × 83 ⅝ inches (267.4 × 212.3 cm)
© Cy Twombly Foundation

About

Lines have a great effect on paintings. They give great emphasis. There’s a line in Alkman: “Leaving Paphos ringed with waves.” . . . It’s central to me. I’m a Mediterranean painter.
—Cy Twombly

On September 25, 2009, Gagosian will inaugurate a new venue in Athens, Greece, with an exhibition of new paintings by Cy Twombly entitled Leaving Paphos Ringed With Waves. Twombly has made many significant exhibitions with Gagosian and was the subject of an important European retrospective survey, Cy Twombly: Cycles and Seasons, initiated by Tate Modern, London, in 2008, which traveled to the Guggenheim Bilbao in Spain and the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna in Rome in 2009. 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—run until October 11, 2009. An exhibition of new bronze sculptures will open at Gagosian New York in September.

The group of four canvases that comprises the Athens exhibition is inspired by a quote from the seventh-century-BCE choral lyric poet Alkman. Twombly used it previously in the ten-part Coronation of Sesostris (2000), which charts the energetic course and eventual demise of the Pharaonic warrior Sesostris II. Twombly’s abbreviation of the original line announces the departure from Paphos, a city sacred to the goddess Aphrodite. The recurring boat ideograph in Twombly’s work is a figure for passage and exile, voyaging and homecoming, death and imperial decline. In these paintings he imparts startling new vigor to the motif and its accompanying script in hot vermilions and rich yellows against expanses of vivid turquoise sea.

The exhibition will be accompanied by an illustrated catalogue with essays by British art historian Mary Jacobus and Demosthenes Davvetas, an author, artist, and professor of philosophy.

Οι γραμμές έχουν μεγάλη επίδραση στους πίνακες. Προσδίδουν μεγάλη έμφαση. Υπάρχει ένας στίχος στον Αλκμάνα: «λιποίσαν και Πάφον περιρρύταν» (αφήνοντας την Πάφο τη ζωσμένη από κύματα) . . . Για μένα είναι κεντρικό στοιχείο. Είμαι Μεσογειακός ζωγράφος.
–Cy Twombly

Στις 25 Σεπτεμβρίου 2009 η Gagosian θα εγκαινιάσει τον καινούριο της χώρο στην Αθήνα με έκθεση των νέων έργων του Cy Twombly με τίτλο «λιποίσαν και Πάφον περιρρύταν». Ο Twombly έχει κάνει πολλές σημαντικές εκθέσεις με την Gagosian Gallery. Το έργο του ήταν επίσης το επίκεντρο σημαντικής περιοδεύουσας αναδρομικής έκθεσης στην Ευρώπη με τίτλο Cy Twombly: Κύκλοι και Εποχές που ξεκίνησε από την Tate Modern του Λονδίνου το 2008 και ταξίδεψε στο Guggenheim του Μπιλμπάο και στο Μουσείο Σύγχρονης Τέχνης της Ρώμης το 2009. Αυτή τη στιγμή υπάρχουν δύο σημαντικές μουσειακές εκθέσεις αφιερωμένες στο έργο του: Cy Twombly: Ο Φυσικός Κόσμος, Επιλογές Έργων 2000–2007, που εγκαινίασε τη νέα πτέρυγα του Art Institute of Chicago, και Cy Twombly: Αισθήσεις της Στιγμής στο Museum Moderner Kunst στη Βιέννη, οι οποί ες θα διαρκέσουν έως τις 11 Οκτωβρίου 2009. Έκθεση με τα νέα μπρούτζινα γλυπτά του Twombly θα εγκαινιαστεί τον Σεπτέμβριο στην Gagosian της Νέας Υόρκης.

Το σύνολο των τεσσάρων καμβάδων που συνιστούν την έκθεση της Αθήνας αντλούν την έμπνευσή τους από ένα απόσπασμα στίχων του Αλκμάνος, λυρικού χορικού ποιητή του 7ου αιώνα π.Χ. Ο Twombly είχε χρησιμοποιήσει τον ίδιο στίχο στο παρελθόν, στη Στέψη του Σεσώστριος (2000), έργο αποτελούμενο από δέκα μέρη, το οποίο διαγράφει την πορεία και το θάνατο του Φαραωνικού πολεμιστή Σεσώστριος του Β’. Το απόσπασμα από τον αρχικό στίχο που χρησιμοποιεί ο Twombly αναγγέλλει την αναχώρηση από την Πάφο, πόλη ιερή για τη θεά Αφροδίτη. Το επαναλαμβανόμενο ιδεογράφημα της βάρκας στο έργο του Twombly είναι μία μορφή που αντανακλά τη μετάβαση και την εξορία, το ταξίδι και την επιστροφή στην πατρίδα, το θάνατο και την αυτοκρατορική παρακμή. Μέσα από τα έργα ο καλλιτέχνης προσδίδει αναπάντεχη ρωμαλεότητα στο μοτίβο αυτό και στο στίχο που το συνοδεύει, με τη χρήση θερμών πορτοκαλο-κόκκινων και πλούσιων κίτρινων πάνω στο έντονο τιρκουάζ του φόντου του καμβά που παραπέμπει στη θάλασσα.

Η έκθεση θα συνοδεύεται από εικονογραφημένο κατάλογο με δοκίμια της Βρετανίδας ιστορικού τέχνης Mary Jacobus και του Δημοσθένη Δαββέτα, ποιητή και κριτικού τέχνης.

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.