Art Lies, Volume 47, Summer 2005 Page: 113
128 p. : ill. (some col.) ; 28 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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HOUSTON EVIEW
SiakTitilly: Fifty Years of Works on Paper
LCbeaM~erniI Collectionndthi rLyn Roberts
Retrospective exhibitions, when sensitively cur-
ated, demand a certain level of respect. Revisiting
the well-known works of an artist's opus can be
gratifying. However, deeper lessons sometimes
lie in examining the lesser-known, more per-
sonal pieces that quietly informed and shaped a
larger body of work over the years. Cy Twombly:
Fifty Years of Works on Paper is successful not
only in providing overwhelming evidence of the
artist's aesthetic consistency and invention, but
also provides access into the inner workings, aes-
thetic preoccupations and archetypal meanderings
of Twombly's compelling but often troublesome
oeuvre.
/ )/ A/[/ Q'i ,
'I
iCy Twombly, Proteus, 1984
Synthetic polymer, colored pencil, graphite on paper
2915/16 x 221/4 inches
Private collection
Cy Twombly
Courtesy Gagosian Gallery
I use the word troublesome because, like many
people, I've always had somewhat mixed feelings
about Twombly. It's as if part of my brain-the
rational, formal, analytical side-wasn't quite sure
what to think of the work, despite its appeal to the
intuitive, visceral, enigmatic regions of my psyche.
On frequent visits to the Menil's permanent collec-
tion in the Twombly Galleries, oversized, over-col-
ored, cryptic paintings and clumsy sculptures werealmost annoying to me in their insistence to be
looked at, decoded, accommodated. Consequently,
I tool< my time with Fifty Years of Works on Paper,
intent on resolving my vacillation, examining both
the formal elements present and my responses to
them. It ended up being a very satisfying day at
the museum.
The exhibition combines the cool, detached,
analytic environment of a pristine gallery instal-
lation exhibited under ideal viewing condi-
tions-eighty-five full-scale works spanning fifty
years-with the personal, almost voyeuristic
sense of analyzing an artist's sketchbook.
Twombly's work is full of subliminal and tan-
gential references, barely decipherable scribbles
and seemingly random, vaguely sexual images,
scrawled lines of poetry and mysterious numeric
calculations and measurements that do not corre-
spond to anything apparent. In some cases, whole
passages have been painted over, rubbed out or
scribbled on top of something else. Despite this
offhand displacement of linear thought, there is
a committed attention to the surfaces of things
(both concealed and revealed); to texture and intu-
itive response; a conscientious distinction between
spontaneous doodles and calculated diagrams;
classical references and personal associations.
In short, all of the things that should not work
in a "finished" piece somehow, inexorably, come
together in an oddly satisfactory trailing-off of
logic and poetry.
It's not difficult to find formal analyses of
Twombly's works. (and there is an excellent cata-
logue for this exhibition that includes exquisite
reproductions of each piece). Intellectual engage-
ment is one thing, but what finally crystallized
for me was the essential physicality of Twombly's
gestures and surfaces. From small, spare, scrawled
drawings to large, formal, fully realized paintings,
his blatant, unpretentious gesture is imminently
satisfying, like the honesty of a child's hand guided
by an informed intellect. Twombly distills gesture
to its essence.
Before we even know what or how to write,
we have the impulse to make a marl. I remember
practicing cursive capital L's when I was six, not
just because it was my middle initial but because I
could loop them together all over the page, which
was just plain gratifying. As an adult, writing
something down that one wants to remember isAi,
' t"."Y,,; ' . .
...L -
.-
( ,i, r.i i ....! ._ . -...
,';". 6 .. . .. .
, ,
'Cy Twombly, Apollo, 1975
Oil stick and graphite on paper
591/16 x 53 15/16 inches
Private Collection
Cy Twombly
Courtesy Gagosian Gallery
more than having a note to refer back to. There
is a process involved: the physical memory of
watching your hand move across a sheet of paper,
the color of the ink, the quality of the line, the
feel of the paper, the shape of the text block,
the direction relative to everything else on the
page. While digital tools are practical, there are
still certain types of things I choose to write by
hand: poetry, notes, personal realizations-things
I want to remember. Life is not a yes or no, 1 or
0 digital computation; it is referential, sensual and
physical. It is possible that the focus and gesture
of mark-making affects the means, method and
very syntax of reason. Does removing that impulse
shift the rational ordering of our thoughts or their
essential quality?
Roland Barthes, in a classic essay included in
the catalogue, writes, "TW [Twombly] tells us that
the essence of writing is neither form nor usage
but simply gesture-the gesture that produces it
by allowing it to happen..."(p.24) Twombly deals in
essentials: essential marl<ks, references, archetypes
and forms. The exhibition's curator describes the
work as "fundamentally subjective, truthful and
uncompromising." Essentials are both binding and
liberating. The dilemma of whether to like it or not,
therefore, may be precisely the point.ARTL!ES Summer 2005 113
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Bryant, John & Gupta, Anjali. Art Lies, Volume 47, Summer 2005, periodical, 2005; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth228012/m1/115/: accessed April 17, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; .