ART-PRESENTATION:Cy Twombly
Cy Twombly ranks among the leading exponents of a generation of artists who broke away from Abstract Expressionism in the ‘50s to devise their owndistinctive and highly influential visual idioms. Cy Twombly at a time when the center of the art world was shifting from Paris to New York, he decided to move in the opposite direction, settling down in Rome.
By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Gagosian Gallery Archive
In the he exhibition “Coronation of Sesostris”, is on presentation Cy Twombly’s “Coronation of Sesostris” (2000) a painting cycle in ten parts The cycle begun in Gaeta, Italy, and completed in Lexington, Virginia, it combines Twombly’s graphic inventiveness and poetic sense of history, rhythm, and elision. In Herodotus’ “Histories” there appears a story told by Egyptian priests about a Pharaoh Sesostris, who once led an army northward overland to Asia Minor, then fought his way westward until he crossed into Europe, where he defeated the Scythians and Thracians. Sesostris then returned home, leaving colonists behind at the river Phasis in Colchis. The cycle begins with a cursory depiction of the red sun (the pharaoh himself) which, as it moves around the room and across subsequent canvases, takes the form of a wheeled chariot (Twombly’s ideograph for military conquest) and is then carried by a boat. Further along in the sequence, boats with multitudes of oars are drenched in yellow, orange, and purple, suggesting the glory of victory. The sixth panel incorporates a 1996 poem about the departure of the gods by the American Southern poet Patricia Waters, adapted and scrawled in a barely legible script in red pencil, framed by blotches of dripping red paint. Also on view are photographs by Sally Mann, of Twombly’s studio in Lexington, Virginia, allowing a glimpse of “Coronation of Sesostris” in progress, from Mann’s series “Remembered Light”. The exhibition “In Beauty it is finished Drawings” presents the first career-spanning exhibition of drawings and works on paper by Cy Twombly and celebrates the completion of the 8th and and final volume of “Cy Twombly: Catalogue Raisonné of Drawings”. “Vol. 8” presents the final, valedictory phase of Twombly’s works on paper. Many of these, which remained in his studio after his death, will be shown for the first time. With sebaceous materials such as oil stick and wax crayon, the late works reveal, in their lyricism and sensuousness. The work that lends its title to the show is a book, constructed by the artist with handmade paper, comprising thirty-four pages of markings, begun in December 1983 and finished in 2002. In the 1950s, when Twombly was a young artist, Abstract Expressionism radically disrupted the conventions of easel painting. Although he was a contemporary of Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns, his work eventually departed from the aims of American postwar abstraction. While prevailing movements of the period, such as Minimalism and Pop art, sought to abandon historical narratives altogether, Twombly, who began to spend time in Europe during this period, directed his focus to classical, modern and ancient poetic traditions. One of the earliest works included in the exhibition is from a 1951 sketchbook. Several drawings feature cascades of pencil markings, subtle gradations, erasures, and other evidence of Twombly’s intense contact with the paper. In the late 1950s Twombly moved to Italy, and works from “Vol. 2” which documents this period, include colorful, diagrammatic works such as “Ode to Psyche” (1960), featuring erotic allusions and jokes while maintaining an abstract charge. Through the 1960s, sensuousness and color pervade the drawings, eventually evolving into more austere gray and blue “blackboard” works. Works from later volumes present changing preoccupations in Twombly’s work and thinking, as he plunged further into poetic and mythic sources. While continuing to work in various locations—including his hometown of Lexington, Virginia, and his final residence in Gaeta, Italy—places, landscapes, and natural forms came to figure prominently in drawings, collages, and watercolor series.
Info: “Coronation of Sesostris”: Gagosian Gallery, 980 Madison Avenue, New York, Duration: 8/3-28/4/18, Days & Hours: Mon-Sat 10:00-18:00 and “In Beauty it is finished Drawings”: Gagosian Gallery, 522 West 21st Street, New York, Duration 8/3-25/4/18, Days & Hours: Mon-Sat 10:00-18:00, www.gagosian.com