Tacita Dean's 'Sigh, Sigh, Sigh' Explores Her Bond with Cy Twombly in Rome

The exhibition 'Sigh, Sigh, Sigh' at Fondazione Nicola Del Roscio in Rome documents the deep artistic affinity between Tacita Dean (born 1965, Canterbury) and Cy Twombly (1928–2011, Lexington, Virginia; died Rome). The show transforms the brutalist space into a labyrinth of rooms, centering on Dean's installation 'Gaeta (fifty photographs plus one)' (2015), comprising 51 photographs taken in Twombly's Gaeta studio, selected collaboratively. A hidden 51st image references Giorgio Morandi's painting, featured in Dean's film 'Still Life' (2009). Also on view is 'Edwin Parker' (2011), filmed in Twombly's Lexington studio, revealing his private life, and 'Pan Amicus' (2021), commissioned by the Getty Center for its 20th anniversary, dedicated to Twombly's drawing 'Pan' (1975). Dean first encountered Twombly's work at a Whitechapel Art Gallery exhibition in 1987. The exhibition includes her essay 'A Panegyric', originally in the 2008 Tate Modern Twombly catalogue, citing James Joyce, Marguerite Yourcenar, Roland Barthes, and W.B. Yeats. Dean describes Twombly as irreverent and profane, with an excess of libidinous or scatological energy. The show reveals a little-known introspective side of Dean's practice in Italy.