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Lot Essay
This work will be included in the forthcoming Robert Indiana catalogue raisonné being prepared by Simon Salama-Caro.
Robert Indiana's iconic LOVE image is among the best known of his subjects. Conceived in 1966 and subsequently cast into sculptural form, LOVE is a wonderful example of mechanical efficiency. The four letter stacked composition, skillfully perfected by the artist over the years, stands as a truly powerful and immediate vehicle of signification and meaning. The color, the fusing force that unites the artist's entire body of work, draws attention immediately.
"LOVE constitutes a principal example of Indiana's system: built according to his usual cruciform axis, cut into two monosyllabic units, the word seems "reduced" to its mere letters... In its graspable, materialistic, "commodified" volumetric,... presence, the sculpture: LOVE, also, undeniably, and inescapably evokes the artists own warning: 'Know that the LOVE I am talking about is spiritual.' At the same time, the O... is an italicized O: it is tilting away, threatening to fall off the lower rank of letters VE, and break the complete square structure of these four neatly composed letters. In other words, spiritual as its message may be, LOVE also indicates that precarity, fragility, break up are almost inevitably part of the story... In its stark, and almost provocative simplicity, LOVE defies definitions - rather, it seems to invite them all." (Robert Indiana, exh. cat., Musee d'Art Moderne et d'Art Contemporain, Nice, 1998, p. 27).
Robert Indiana's iconic LOVE image is among the best known of his subjects. Conceived in 1966 and subsequently cast into sculptural form, LOVE is a wonderful example of mechanical efficiency. The four letter stacked composition, skillfully perfected by the artist over the years, stands as a truly powerful and immediate vehicle of signification and meaning. The color, the fusing force that unites the artist's entire body of work, draws attention immediately.
"LOVE constitutes a principal example of Indiana's system: built according to his usual cruciform axis, cut into two monosyllabic units, the word seems "reduced" to its mere letters... In its graspable, materialistic, "commodified" volumetric,... presence, the sculpture: LOVE, also, undeniably, and inescapably evokes the artists own warning: 'Know that the LOVE I am talking about is spiritual.' At the same time, the O... is an italicized O: it is tilting away, threatening to fall off the lower rank of letters VE, and break the complete square structure of these four neatly composed letters. In other words, spiritual as its message may be, LOVE also indicates that precarity, fragility, break up are almost inevitably part of the story... In its stark, and almost provocative simplicity, LOVE defies definitions - rather, it seems to invite them all." (Robert Indiana, exh. cat., Musee d'Art Moderne et d'Art Contemporain, Nice, 1998, p. 27).