- Venue
- Gagosian Gallery
- Location
- London
Latest show ‘The Rose’ by Cy Twombly at the Gagosian treats us to 5 monumental new paintings by the king of high romance and painterly decadence. Each panel measures 252 x 740cm and brings to mind billboard advertisements as well as previous admissions of raw emotion as expressed by Cy and many of his abstract expressionist predecessors.<BR> <BR>
On entering the space, these explosions of colour and lust scream at your senses, demanding that you bow down in awe. It leads you to suspect that this is the artist urging you to feel as much for these works as he does for the subject matter. <BR> <BR>
The lurid colours Twombly uses, and the flatness of the turquoise background in each of the works is so immediate and adolescent, you almost forget that this is the work of an 80 year old man. This is the work of a love stricken teenager, so hungry to express his burning desires of the rose, that he whacks paint on so fresh and watery with no room for contemplation. Admittedly the first impression of this is that these are 5 very crude depictions, but with the clever simplicity of a limited palette in each panel, and the seductive drips, spills, gestures and transparent layers, these works show their fragile complexity and parallels with the human psyche when viewed close up.
