Detail

Robert Indian described himself as “American painter of signs”. American commercial culture with its billboards and consumer goods logos, its modern myths and dreams is an inexhaustible source of inspiration for Robert Indiana since the end of the Fifties. He created a singular imagery which consists of an essentially limited number of simple pictorial and linguistic elements. Geometric signs, letters, and numbers are varied in ever different combinations. In the Mid-Sixties he created the first works of the LOVE series, a motif which Indiana explains against his religious background. It exists in countless forms and media as painting, graphic, stamp, and sculpture. LOVE functions as an abstracted generally valid and understandable message which can be imbued with any sentimental, erotic, or religious content. For the painting "Love Rising/ Black and White Love" the word is split into two syllables and mirrored both horizontally and vertically. What seems innocuous decorative ornamental structure in fact takes up a political event of historic dimensions ion the year 1968 which shocked an entire nation. The black and white painting is dedicated to Martin Luther King, holder of the Nobel Peace Prize and activist of peaceful race integration who was assassinated in April of that very year.