Cy Twombly Foundation

NewsUpcoming at Gagosian New York: Cy Twombly ...
News›Exhibitions

At Gagosian New York:
Cy Twombly
An Exhibition of Historic Work by the Artist

Organized in association with the Cy Twombly Foundation, Cy Twombly features works spanning more than two decades, including pieces never shown before.

Cy Twombly
January 23–March 22, 2025
Gagosian, 980 Madison Ave., New York

Photo: Maris Hutchinson. Courtesy Gagosian

Photo: Maris Hutchinson. Courtesy Gagosian

Photo: Maris Hutchinson. Courtesy Gagosian

Cy Twombly, Paesaggio, 1986
Courtesy Gagosian Gallery. Photo: Peter Schälchli

Photo: Owen Conway. Courtesy Gagosian

FROM THE PRESS RELEASE

Gagosian is pleased to announce an exhibition of paintings, a sculpture, and works on paper by Cy Twombly. The presentation opens on January 23, 2025, across two floors of the galleries at 980 Madison Avenue. Organized in association with the Cy Twombly Foundation, it includes key bodies of work from 1968 through 1990, including pieces that have never been shown before and loans from the Twombly family.

The installation on the sixth floor features a series of paintings that Twombly made from 1968 through 1971, representing a more austere approach than do the canvases of the prior decade. Produced during the era of Minimalism and Conceptual art, these canvases have often been interpreted as “blackboards”—their gestural flux breaking down distinctions between painting, drawing, and writing.

One work from 1968 features nested loops that cascade down and across the canvas. Inscriptions and numbers give the work a diagrammatic quality, while its dynamic composition recalls Leonardo da Vinci’s Deluge drawings (c. 1517–18). An untitled painting of nine panels from 1971 forms a sequence linked by accumulated diagonals and curves.

The installation on the fifth floor includes a series of verdant green paintings that Twombly made in Bassano in Teverina, Italy, from 1981 through 1986. Marking the artist’s exploration of color and the liquidity of paint, these layered, atmospheric works abstract elemental meetings of water, earth, and air. A group of these paintings is rendered on barbed quatrefoil panels, their format, palette, and evocation of landscapes echoing Rococo art.

Condottiero Testa di Cozzo (1987) refers to Titian’s portrait of the Grand Duke of Alba (c. 1570) with vibrant passages that paraphrase the Renaissance commander’s red sash, ruffled collar, and black armor. Twombly’s emblematic treatment of natural forms is furthered in a series of vibrant floral abstractions from the Souvenir of D’Arros series (1990), while a sculpture from 1983 exemplifies his engagement with materiality and gesture in three dimensions.

Five Day Wait at Jiayuguan (1980) is a suite of works on paper first exhibited at the 39th Biennale di Venezia and publicly reunited here for the first time in over forty years. Made in Rome, it was inspired by Twombly’s travels the previous year through Russia, Afghanistan, and Central Asia, and is titled after the city in northwestern China, on the edge of the Gobi Desert. Through gestural forms and poetic inscriptions, these works evoke observations of life, history, and culture in the desert landscape.

The exhibition is accompanied by two Gagosian publications: an illustrated two-volume catalogue with essays by Suzanne Hudson and Jenny Saville, and a facsimile of the artist’s book of Five Day Wait at Jiayuguan, originally published by Gabriele Stocchi in 1981 for the Biennale di Venezia presentation.

For further information:
Gagosian, 980 Madison Ave., New York
gagosian.com

More News

Announcements

In Perspective | Episode Ten
Cy Twombly Inscriptions

A new In Perspective episode dedicated to Cy Twombly Inscriptions (2022), a comprehensive publication by the art historian Thierry Greub, which collects in six volumes the literary inscriptions included in Cy Twombly's works.
The genesis of the publication will be the main topic of the next episode through the conversation between the author and Eleonora Di Erasmo, Managing Director of the Cy Twombly Foundation.
Cy Twombly's handwritten note
Courtesy Fondazione Nicola Del Roscio

Exhibitions

At Museum Brandhorst, Munich:
Five Friends. John Cage, Merce Cunningham, Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Cy Twombly
A Group Exhibition with 180 artworks by the artists

Museum Brandhorst is showing a circle of artists who had a decisive influence on music, dance and art in the post-war period.

Announcements

In Perspective | Episode Nine
Cy Twombly
&
Pierre Henry

A special In Perspecitve episode dedicated to Cy Twombly and the French composer Pierre Henry featuring a podcast by the music journalist and radio host, Francesco Adinolfi, and the video performance of Le Voile d’Orphée (1953) on the loudspeaker orchestra of Pierre Henry/ Studio Son/Ré held at Fondazione Nicola Del Roscio in Rome on the occasion of the first edition of Un/veiled (2022).
The loudspeaker orchestra of Pierre Henry/ Studio Son/Ré
Fondazione Nicola Del Roscio, Rome
Ph. Valerio Polici

Cy Twombly Foundation

19 East 82nd St New York, NY 10028
+1 212 744 2228
info@cytwombly.org
Instagram icon

 

All artworks by Cy Twombly © Cy Twombly Foundation

This website and all interviews are made available for non-commercial research purposes only and may not be duplicated or distributed without express written permission from the individual interview copyright holders and the Cy Twombly Foundation.

Website by Wiedner Studio