This relatively small show opened the Art Institute's new Renzo Piano–designed wing for modern and contemporary art and was overshadowed in a way by the well-deserved fuss over the building. It consisted of a few dozen paintings and a handful of sculptures, most of them touching upon motifs from nature. In his later years Twombly, the man who made scribbles the stuff of great art, has entered a very lyrical phase, and this show was shot through with all kinds of idiosyncratic beauty.
The Art Institute of Chicago, 5/16-10/11