Love, Red/Blue, 1966-1999
36 x 36 x 17.9 in (91 x 91 x 45 cm)
Edition: 6, 4AP
Materials: Polychrome Aluminium
Additional Notes:
Indiana is most widely recognized for his signature LOVE works. This series is a continuous theme in the artist’s work from the early 1960s to the present day, embracing variations of design, language, colour, scale and media.One of the most iconic images of the Pop Art movement, Robert Indiana’s Love sculptures cross the boundaries between language, literary meaning and abstract shape; they are simultaneously Pop-Art and Pop-Object. These works that at first glance seem so simplistic in composition, in fact have important political and social connotations, evoking the anti-war fervour expressed by so may young Americans during the 60s and 70s, and echoing the famous mantra ‘Make Love not War’. Indiana juxtaposes the rigid geometry of a square format with the glorious curves of the letters comprising LOVE; the letters at once engage and resist abstraction and literal interpretation, creating a powerful and complex contrast. The power of the Love series is evident in the numerous ways in which it continues to be used in popular American culture: postage stamps, book covers, album artwork etc. In today’s politically volatile world the impact and meaning of the Love series is as relevant as ever.
LOVE is built according to a cruciform axis, cut into four isolated units, reducing the word to its mere letters- making it graspable, materialistic and volumistic. It envokes the importance of Indiana’s own Christian spirituality `Know that the LOVE I am talking about is spiritual’. The O is italicized; it is tilting away, threatening to roll off the VE and break the square structure; implying the fragility and precarious aspects of the concept of love. `The reason I became involved in Love is that it is so much a part of the peculiar American environment, particularly in my own background, which was Christian Scientist. God is love spelled out in every church’