Robert Indiana

Private Collection, France

Having participated in the landmark 1962 New Realists exhibition organized by the Sidney Janis Gallery in New York, Robert Indiana established himself as key member of the second wave of American Pop Art. His career took a distinctive turn with the creation of a LOVE greeting card in 1964, distributed to his friends in the art world and later adapted into various recognizable colour schemes at the request of the MoMA.

A few years later, he began producing editions of metal sculptures. Through direct and simple words, playing with the visual architecture of letters, Indiana explored and questioned American identity while developing a universal language that would later be translated into numerous languages around the world with the same powerful impact.

In 2008, Robert Indiana created the sculpture HOPE, installing a monumental version at the corner of 7th Avenue and 53rd Street in Midtown, New York. Intended to convey a message of hope, peace, and confidence in a world shaken by the 2008 financial crisis, the artist donated all proceeds from the reproduction rights of the work to Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. According to Indiana, HOPE is the closest companion to his famous LOVE sculpture located just a few blocks away in New York, answering it in the best possible way more than forty years later. Thus, the call for Love addressed to American youth in the 1960s was followed by a call for Hope in a world in crisis, in a state of perpetual instability.

“The word, the object, and the idea are almost inseparable in the mind, and there is no need to separate or dismantle them. Artists have generally done so in the past. I prefer not to.”

Robert Indiana, quoted in Roland Mönig, 9 Key-Words, Exh. Cat., Kleve, Museum Kurhaus, Robert Indiana, 2007, p. 21.