Works Exhibited
About
Bohemia has no banner. It survives by discretion.
—Tennessee Williams
To inaugurate the new Paris gallery, Gagosian is pleased to present Camino Real, a group of five new paintings by Cy Twombly. Each displays the inimitable and exuberant painterly gestures and highly keyed palette typical of his recent paintings.
Camino Real is a reference to the play by Tennessee Williams, first performed in New York in 1953. The cast of characters, which includes Don Quixote, Lord Byron, Casanova, Baron de Charlus, and Marguerite Gautier, represents a romantic attitude to life, “old knights, dreamers, and troublemakers” who retain a wild and untrammelled vision.
Twombly’s paintings have an allusive and elusive relationship with this title; they are renewed evidence of his exceptional vitality and the freedom to work with intense colors and effusive gestures that are not restricted to a single reference. Their vivid palette relates to his previous series of “rose” and “peony” paintings, and contrasts with the austerity of the patinated bronze sculptures that are also part of this exhibition.
A fully illustrated catalogue with an essay by Marie-Laure Bernadac will accompany the exhibition.
La vie de bohème ne s’affiche pas. Elle survit grâce à la discrétion.
—Tennessee Williams
Pour l’inauguration de l’ouverture de sa galerie parisienne, Larry Gagosian est heureux de présenter Camino Real, une série de cinq nouvelles peintures de Cy Twombly. Chaque tableau reprend le geste pictural inimitable et exubérant propre à l’artiste ainsi qu’une intensité de palette typique de ses peintures récentes.
Camino Real fait référence à la pièce de théâtre de Tennessee Williams, mise en scène la première fois à New York en 1953. Le choix des personnages, dont Don Quichotte, Lord Byron, Casanova, le Baron de Charlus et Marguerite Gautier, représente un mode de vie romantique, où «les vieux chevaliers, les rêveurs et les voyous» ont une vision libre et désinvolte de la vie.
Les tableaux présentés de Twombly ont tous un double rapport avec le titre de l’exposition, à la fois allusif et élusif. L’évidence renouvelée d’une vitalité exceptionnelle et une liberté de travail avec des couleurs intenses et des gestes expansifs ne se restreignent pas qu’à une seule référence. La palette de couleurs vives rappelle la série Rose and Peonies et contraste avec l’austérité des sculptures en bronze patiné, aussi présentées ici dans l’exposition.
Un catalogue illustré avec un texte de Marie-Laure Bernadac accompagnera l’exposition.
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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.
