With three recent shows in New York, an exhibition in Houston, and a permanent room at SFMOMA, Cy Twombly has never been more popular. The artist, especially beloved by poets and writers, seems to be having a full-blown moment—14 years after his death. Alta Journal contributor and poet Dean Rader wrote about Twombly’s renewed success—and his deep, personal connection to the artist’s work—for our Issue 32. (Rader is also the author of Before the Borderless: Dialogues with the Art of Cy Twombly.) He joins Alta Live to share some of his favorite Twombly pieces, discuss the artist’s impact on both modern art and Rader’s life, and welcome your questions and observations about this master of the scribble.

About the guest:

Dean Rader has authored or coedited 13 books, including Self-Portrait As Wikipedia Entry and Works & Days, which won the TS Eliot Prize for Poetry. Before the Borderless: Dialogues with the Art of Cy Twombly appeared in 2023. He is a professor at the University of San Francisco and a 2019 Guggenheim Fellow in Poetry.

Here are some notable quotes from today’s event:

  • On interpreting Twombly’s art: “At the time, his art may have seemed irrelevant or a little clueless or not tuned in to the current moment, but now, in retrospect, his work feels almost sort of transcendent—not attached to a period or a movement or a political moment.”
  • On Twombly’s scribbles: “Yes, your kindergartner, and my youngest son, actually, was doing Twomblyesque scribbles even before kindergarten. And you’re right, you see your kid doing some scribbles, and you’re like, “Oh my God, I’ve got a Jackson Pollock here in the crib.” Yes, there are elements that your kid, and that you, could totally do. Absolutely—I’ve tried to replicate the first piece you showed. And what I would say is that there’s something way more complicated going on in the background of these scribbles. Scribbles within scribbles as well as, to me, a real order to this piece.”
  • On being drawn to Twombly: “I feel like if I look at a landscape or a portrait, things are spelled out a little bit for me. There isn’t always space for me to put myself into those pieces, but Twombly’s pieces were this mix of having some sort of design and language and these scribbles that were sort of inscrutable. There was something about their open-endedness that seemed like they just would keep going that felt eternal and immortal. Both saying something, but not saying something. And they seemed to inhabit this gray area of inhabiting this world and not being of this world, of being of this time and not of this time.”

Check out these links to some of the topics brought up this week.