This catalogue, published by the capc Musée d’art contemporain in Bordeaux, includes Jean-Louis Froment’s poem “À Cy Twombly,” Jacques Henric “Les strategies ironiques de Cy Twombly,” and discursive descriptions alongside the artworks reproduced, a list of artworks exhibited, and a biography.

Froment’s poem concerns Bordeaux as the site of Twombly’s exhibition, the use of writing in Twombly’s artworks, Twombly’s studio, and his references to antiquity and mythology. Henric’s contribution concerns the “possible stories” (“histoires possibles”) that Twombly invokes as well as the “ancient” debate over representation and the truth-value of the image (7). He writes of Twombly as intervening in this “vast proliferation of images” (“la folle prolifération des images”) through his “analogue of writing” (“analogique d’un écrit”) (8), citing Twombly’s turns to Theocritus, John Keats, Rainer Marie Rilke, and so on. He offers detailed considerations the label “baroque” for Twombly’s practice as well as his famous line or gesture (“le geste”). Froment asserts that Twombly “radically distinguishes himself from his contemporaries” (“se distingue radicalement de ses contemporains”) (9) through his distinctive “nature twomblienne” (9).  

For more on artworks from in this period and included in this exhibition, see also Cy Twombly: Making Past Present, eds. Christine Kondoleon and Kate Nesin (2020), Cy Twombly: Œuvres sur papier 1973–1977, Musée de Grenoble (2023), Fifty Days at Iliam, ed. Carlos Basualdo (2018), Richard Leeman’s Cy Twombly: A Monograph (2005), Cy Twombly: A Retrospective, ed. Kirk Varnedoe (1994), and Dominique Baqué’s Cy Twombly: Sous le signe d’Apollon et de Dionysos (2016).

(Publication description by Jamie Danis)

Published on the occasion of the exhibition Cy Twombly. Œuvres de 1973 – 1983
at Musée d'art contemporain, CAPC, Bordeaux (May 19 – September 9, 1984).

Cy Twombly. Œuvres de 1973–1983. Text by Jacques Henric. Published by Musée d’art contemporain, CAPC, Bordeaux. French edition.