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LOVE

1966–1999

Images

LOVE, a 96 by 96 by 48 inch Cor-Ten steel sculpture consisting of the letter "L" and a tilted letter "O" above the letters "V" and "E."

LOVE

1966–1999

Cor-Ten steel

96 × 96 × 48 in. (243.8 × 243.8 × 121.9 cm)

Stamped on the lower interior edge of the letter "E"

Edition of five plus two artist proofs and two HCs.

 

Photo: Courtesy of the Walker Arts Center, Minneapolis; Artwork: © Morgan Art Foundation Ltd./Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY

Installation of Indiana's 144-inch Cor-Ten steel LOVE at Fifth Avenue and Sixtieth Street, New York, November 1971. The tilted letter "O" is being lowered on top of the letter "E"

Installation of Indiana's 144-inch Cor-Ten steel LOVE (1966–1999) at Fifth Avenue and Sixtieth Street, New York, November 1971

 

Photo: Eliot Elisofon. Eliot Elisofon Papers and Photography Collection, 1930-1988, undated [bulk 1942-1973]. The University of Texas at Austin, Harry Ransom Center

Description

I say the Philadelphia LOVE was a high point. Probably the highest for me was to see the LOVE in Central Park across from the Plaza Hotel [November 29, 1971–January 5, 1972]. And its effect on people was immediate and spontaneous. People, people could just not resist climbing in, through around, all over the LOVE. And of course that wasn’t so happy because Cor-Ten steel is very, very, rather a tender medium, and takes scuffing and graffiti and so forth very badly. But that was a very gratifying experience for me. It was quite obvious that everybody did love the LOVE. 

— Robert Indiana

 

Excerpt from Susan Elizabeth Ryan, interview with Robert Indiana, January 13, 1991, Robert Indiana: Figures of Speech Archive 1987–2005.