screening and conversation > Cy Dear

On the occasion of the exhibition Cy Twombly: Making Past Present presented by the J. Paul Getty Museum with the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston at the Getty Center (August 2 – October 30), we are hosting a screening of the documentary “Cy Dear. A Journey through the life and works of Cy Twombly” (Italy 2019, 92′) written and directed by Andrea Bettinetti.

The screening will be followed by a conversation moderated by Richard Rand, Associate Director for Collections at the Getty Museum, featuring the film director, the producer, Michele Bongiorno and the exhibition curator, Dr. Christine Kondoleon.

Cy Twombly (1928–2011) ranks among the most prominent US painters to emerge in the 1950s, a period of radical experimentation in American and European art. Twombly avoided centers of modern art like New York, moving to Italy in 1959. There he engaged creatively with the enduring legacy of antiquity, infusing his work with provocative allusions to mythology, poetry, and archaeology.

Since 2000 documentary director ANDREA BETTINETTI has made more than 30 documentaries for all the major Italian channels as well as various foreign television stations. Many of his works have been screened at festivals in Italy and abroad. He has taught IED, Istituto Europeo di Design in Milan, since 2010. His most recent documentary “Marina Cicogna la vita e tutto il resto”, a French-Italian coproduction, is the portrait of Countess Marina Cicogna, Oscar winning film producer, photographer and symbol of style and elegance. The documentary was nominated for the 2022 Nastro d’Argento. 
Passionate about art, he made the documentaries “Piero Manzoni, Artista” (2013), “Swinging Roma” (2015) on the Roman cultural scene of the sixties, “Fabio Mauri, ritratto a luce solida” (2017) and “Cy Dear” (2018), which premiered at FIFA in Montreal and MoMA in New York. The documentary was an official selection at Artecinema in Naples, Schermo dell’arte in Florence, Epos International Art Film Festival, Beirut Art Film Festival, and screened at the Whitney in New York, the Louvre in Paris, the National Portrait Gallery in London and the Brandhoerst Museum in Munich. He is currently in pre-production for a documentary on the legacy of Arte Povera.

After graduating in Economic History from the London School of Economics, work experiences in Argentina and Spain and attending courses in audiovisual production at NYU and audiovisual marketing and distribution at Columbia University, MICHELE BONGIORNO was one of the founders of Bongiorno Productions leveraging 50 years of the Bongiorno family experience in the field of television and media. In 2002 he created Good Day Films, a spin-off company of Bongiorno Productions, dedicated to the production and dissemination of cultural and educational projects. Its 30+ documentary films with different subjects and storytelling styles have been distributed in Italy and around the world and recognized with various international awards. Since 2009 he has been co-founder and board member of the Mike Bongiorno Foundation which has been carrying out community projects on a national level and sponsoring scholarships at many Italian universities.

Dr. CHRISTINE KONDOLEON is the George Behrakis Chair of the Art of Ancient Greece and Rome at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. She completed the roll out of 12 new galleries this year as part of a master plan (7 already completed) for reinterpretation of the Greek and Roman collections at the MFA. She is also the curator of the Cy Twombly: Making Past Present and the editor of the accompanying exhibition catalogue. In addition to publications of this world-renowned collection, most recently a book on the colossal Juno sculpture from the Ludovisi Collection, she has also organized the exhibition Games for the Gods in 2004, and her Aphrodite and the Gods of Love, the first exhibition on the goddess of love in 2011. She was formerly the Curator of Ancient Art at the Worcester Art Museum where she organized the 2000-2001 exhibition Antioch: The Lost Ancient City. She has worked with contemporary artists from Greece to promote the Greek Art today exhibition at the SMFA and with Chuck Close for a show at the Worcester Art Museum. She was Associate Professor of Art at Williams College (1982-1995) where she also served as Chair of the Department and Acting Director of Clark Art Institute Graduate Program. She was an invited Resident at the American Academy in Rome in 2007 and has been a Visiting Professor at Harvard University and Tufts University. She received her PhD from Harvard University in 1985. Her special field is later Roman and Early Byzantine Art and mosaics.

RICHARD RAND has worked as a curator and museum administrator for over thirty years, including at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth College, and the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Massachusetts. From 1998 to 2015 he was Adjunct Lecturer in the Graduate Program in Art History at Williams College. Since 2015 he has served as Associate Director of Collections at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles. Rand has published and lectured widely on French art from the 17th through the 19th centuries. He is the author of Intimate Encounters: Love and Domesticity in Eighteenth-Century France (Princeton, 1997) and Claude Lorrain: The Painter as Draftsman (Yale, 2007), among other publications, and regularly writes exhibition reviews for The Burlington Magazine. In recent years, Rand has organized several exhibitions of contemporary artists, including Juan Muñoz, El Anatsui, and Ellsworth Kelly. He is one of the curators of the exhibition Cy Twombly: Making Past Present (Getty and MFA, Boston, 2022-23). Rand received his BA in studio art and art history from Bowdoin College and his PhD in art history from the University of Michigan. In 2011 he was made Chevalier des arts et des lettres by the French government.