Cy Twombly’s Athens Dialogues

Cy Twombly’s work is making a double appearance in Athens this summer: Divine Dialogues in on display at the Museum of Cycladic Art, while an exhibition of photographs is on the walls of the Gagosian in the capital city.

The namesake Gagosian show is a collection of captures from the American artist’s life in the Lazio region in Italy: tulips, strawberries, cabbages and lemons taken in Rome and Gaeta between 1985 and 2008. He kept capturing these everyday moments until his death in 2011 in the Italian capital.

Divine Dialogues, on the other hand, revels in the otherworldly in Twombly’s work: the institution is promoting a conversation between 27 of his pieces inspired by Greek mythology and 12 ancient Greek artworks. The result is an astonishing juxtaposition between drawings and sculptures such as Dionysus (1975), Apollo (1975) and Nike (1980) and ancient artworks such as the Statue of Dionysus from the Archaeological Museum of Eleusis and the Statuette of Apollo and the Figurine of winged Nike from the National Archaeological Museum of Athens.

While most of the paintings and drawings on display belong to the 1970s and onwards, Twombly’s fascination with Greece started permeating his work since the late 1950s. “The Greek world played an immense role for Cy Twombly,” explains Jonas Storsve, the curator behind Divine Dialogues. “Among his heroes we find ancient gods, Alexander the Great as well as Achilles. To be able to show his work in Athens within the context of Greek antique art is a fascinating challenge for a curator.”

The photography exhibition is open at the Gagosian in Athens until July 29, while Divine Dialogues closes on September 3.