Mary Weatherford: The Flaying of Marsyas

Mary Weatherford: The Flaying of Marsyas documents an exhibition of new paintings by Mary Weatherford, which were presented in 2022 at the Museo di Palazzo Grimani, Venice, to coincide with the 59th Biennale di Venezia. This catalog documents an exhibition of paintings from 2021–22 by Mary Weatherford, a daring practitioner of American abstraction and a leading painter of her generation. The series takes its immediate inspiration from Titian’s late painting, The Flaying of Marsyas (c. 1570–76), reflecting the artist’s enduring fascination with this work. Alluding to the Renaissance painter’s subdued palette, while paying tribute to the distinctive light of Venice, Weatherford uses Flashe paint and neon tubing to distill the earlier canvas’s affect. She responds to Titian’s composition by translating the violent character of its mythological theme into a format that, while more improvisational, also alludes to fate, hubris, and the relationship between the human and the divine. Francine Prose’s essay traces the history of depictions of the myth of Apollo and Marsyas in paintings, and places Weatherford’s interpretation of the story in the context of contemporary life.