Cy Twombly: Leaving Paphos Ringed with Waves

This poster featuring Leaving Paphos Ringed with Waves (IV) (2009) was produced in 2009, in conjunction with Cy Twombly: Leaving Paphos Ringed with Waves at Gagosian, Athens. This exhibition inaugurated the Athens gallery and featured a group of four canvases inspired by a quote from the seventh-century-BCE choral lyric poet Alkman. Twombly’s abbreviation of the original line announces the departure from Paphos, a city sacred to the goddess Aphrodite. The recurring boat ideograph in Twombly’s work is a figure for passage and exile, voyaging and homecoming, death and imperial decline.