The intermittent flashing of a multitude of light bulbs spelling out ‘LOVE’ both introduces and summarises the Robert Indiana retrospective at Yorkshire Sculpture Park. This aluminium version, ‘The Electric LOVE’ (1966-2000) stands about head height, with red and blue exterior sections and a bright white interior littered with lightbulbs. Sitting inside the door of the Underground Gallery, it sets the tone for a nostalgic, hopeful and expansive exhibition that longs for what was and what could have been.
This is not the only ‘LOVE’ I encountered on my visit to Robert Indiana: Sculpture 1958-2018. The first was outdoors, rising above the hillside and standing defiantly in primary colours against the grey sky. Walking from the direction of The Weston and passing beyond the Chapel, the work instantly grabs your attention. The bold primary red with blue and green interior highlights creates a distinct contrast that sets it out from the natural surroundings. It feels as if it was designed to gaze lovingly over the Yorkshire landscape. In this new realm, ‘LOVE’ regains its status as an artwork, not just as a ubiquitous greeting card image.
I think the first place I saw one of Indiana’s ‘LOVE’ sculptures was not in a park, gallery or book, but on someone’s mantlepiece in the Channel 4 show ‘Don’t Tell the Bride’. The design, a square format block capital cube of letters, has been so easily copied and disseminated that you see it everywhere, from wedding photos on Instagram featuring life-size illuminated letters, to Etsy listings for 3D printed models or tea towels. Indiana himself saw the work as a failing on his behalf, a copyright issue meant he was unable to control and profit from the work, simultaneously he recognised that the work became a great success and made his name famous across the world. The fame of ‘LOVE’ doesn’t make these works any less worthy. Just because I can buy LOVE bookends in the Pound Shop doesn’t mean that seeing the real thing, huge, heavy and vibrant, is any less inspiring.
This survey show isn’t all about ‘LOVE’. The exhibition includes work that spans a career of over sixty years, covering a variety of mediums and materials, from sculpture to paintings and prints. From the late 1950s through to the end of his career, Indiana found and repurposed words and sentiments alongside physical materials. Scrap wood and metal found in his localities of Manhattan and Vinalhaven, Maine, became wall-based montages and free-standing totems. The scavenged materials from industry and manufacturing are given new life as moving and thoughtful 3D collages.
Indiana’s works are imbued with personal significance and meaning. Works referencing his mother through multiplying columns are carefully placed within the safe confines of the lofty Underground Gallery. The artist referred to these forms as ‘herms’. Herms were ancient Greek structures placed at boundaries and crossroads, providing luck and protection to travellers. Later associated with Hermes, a god of fertility, they often featured male genitals carved into the stone. This is an apt name as other large phallic structures dominate and protrude across the gallery spaces. Works referencing home, landscape and relationships repeat through the rooms, speaking to the different places Indiana called home, and the family, friends and lovers he shared his life with.
The passage from birth to death is represented in the vast ‘ONE Through ZERO (The Ten Numbers)’(1980–2001) which is encamped on the lawn outside the Underground Gallery. The numbers count upwards but ultimately end with zero, nothing. They are omnipresent, visible as you walk around and between the works indoors. Always just in the line of sight, the numbers haunt us with the knowledge that we progress through life only to come to naught.
Indiana’s fascination with numbers features heavily throughout the exhibition, and just as words and phrases repeat so too do numbers and numerical sequences. Indiana often spoke of his love of numbers, describing them as beautiful. This thought reminds me of the now iconic 2004 film ‘Mean Girls’, as Cady states maths is ‘the same in every country’; the notion that we could communicate in any language using maths is a beautiful way to look at the potential and symbolism implied by and through numbers.
Indiana’s numbers appear framed and mounted on the wall, as columns and prints, and set within specific pairings and groupings. ‘The Melville Triptych’ (1962) references Coenties Slip, the street in Manhattan where Indiana lived from 1956 before moving to Maine. The three black and white paintings feature a circle, each with a different section of the peace symbol. The broken symbol, grouped together across the three panels, gives both a sense of disbelief and hope.
The core elements of life are represented through the works in the exhibition. The passing of time in ‘ONE Through ZERO (The Ten Numbers)’, the place we call home through ‘The Melville Triptych’, relationships, family and life summed up by ‘LOVE’. Indiana’s work is a distillation of life stripped back to the essentials. The ‘Column’ series scattered across the galleries reads: LOVE, EAT, DIE, HUG. ‘EAT’ is a singular word that encapsulates our need to sustain our bodies, but also to absorb experiences, assimilate and consume. ‘DIE’ means death; this is not a commanding instruction but makes clear that death is a central part of life. ‘HUG’ references love, companionship, touch – our lifelong relationships and friendships, trials and tribulations summed up in one word.
‘The Electric American Dream (EAT/DIE/HUG/ERR)’ (2007-18) is a recent work, completed not long before the artist’s death in 2018. Made of four large circular discs mounted on the wall, the polychrome aluminium shines brightly, and is illuminated in stages by the light bulbs spread across their surface. Spelled out in light are the words EAT/DIE/HUG/ERR in block capitals. ‘ERR’ invokes a sense of morality and transgression and implies a questioning or wavering over decisions and actions, reminding us that not everything in life is as certain as death, and that there is room for change and unknowing.
For someone like myself, who was aware of the artist’s name but had shied away from further exploration due to the oversaturation of ‘LOVE’, I was moved by the sorrowful beauty and nostalgic passion of his life’s work. The retrospective gives a well-balanced insight into the practice, history and background of an exceptional artist whose work became the symbol for a generation of cultural movements and calls to action across the 1960s, 70s and beyond. In this present time of war, upheaval, and struggle, it is entirely fitting that ‘LOVE’ once again finds a foothold in popular culture and brings us a much-needed moment of joy.
Abi Mitchell is a writer and programmer based in West Yorkshire.
Robert Indiana: Sculpture 1958-2018 continues at Yorkshire Sculpture Park until 16 April 2023. The exhibition is supported by Morgan Art Foundation Ltd. and the Henry Moore Foundation.
This review is supported by Yorkshire Sculpture Park.
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Published 08.11.2022 by Eloise Bennett in Reviews
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