Leaving Paphos Ringed with Waves poster by Cy Twombly

This poster features Leaving Paphos Ringed with Waves (I) (2009.) It was produced by Gagosian in 2009, in conjunction with Cy Twombly: Leaving Paphos Ringed with Waves, the exhibition which inaugurated Gagosian's Athens gallery. The show 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.