|
Material : Painted aluminum
| Item 3 on 36
Place(s)
Sculpture (Letters)
Area related
Tokyo (Japon)
| |  | |
| Description |  |
|
Conceived in a time when the United States was consumed by the Vietnam War, LOVE became a symbol for Peace. This famous sculpture is one of the most celebrated works within the pop art movement as well the art world as a whole.
Purchased through the Scottsdale Public Art Program with in-kind support from Pascal and Sylvie de Sarthe, Scottsdale and Simon and Gilian Salama-Caro, New York, in 2002, LOVE is a 144" (h) x144" (w) x72" (d) sculpture made of poly-chromed red and blue aluminum, weighing 3,800 lbs.
There are a number of different colored editions, Scottsdale purchased the first in a series of five, (with two artist proofs), red and blue sculptures. Other colored editions include blue and green and red, white and blue.
LOVE has been a fixture in the art of Robert Indiana. Its form and structure have changed significantly throughout the years from 1958-1966 and even through to today. The iconography first appeared in a series of poems originally written in 1958, in which Indiana stacked LO and VE on top of one another. The first LOVE sculpture was carved out of a solid block of aluminum, highly unpolished, that the pop artist had made for a show at the Stable Gallery in 1966. The idea for the sculptural piece originated from a visit to a Christian Science church in Indianapolis, where Robert was taken by an adorned banner that read "GOD is LOVE." He then created a painting for an exhibition held in what was formerly a Christian Science church. It depicted the reverse of the previous banner, stating "LOVE is GOD."LOVE by Robert Indiana
Shortly after, Indiana was commissioned to design a Christmas card for the Museum of Modern Art, for which he made three small paintings of the word love in red, blue and green. These cards were printed in 1965 and since have been the most popular card MoMA has ever published. Since then LOVE has become a cultural icon and has been used extensively throughout the art world and media, with and without the artist's approval. The image has been transformed into T-shirts, mugs, rugs and posters. The 330-million United States postal stamps issued in the 1970s are one of the more popular examples of the mass reproduction and appropriation of this image.
| Item(s) related | |
| Related article(s) | |
|
