Self-designated “sign painter” Robert Indiana recently bemoaned the success of his ubiquitous LOVE logo. With the aid of the ever-cooperative N.Y. Times he was prepping us for his Whitney retrospective, subtitled “Beyond Love” (to Feb. 2). In 1964, MoMA commissioned the LOVE device for a Christmas card, and then commercial-art hacks ripped it off. Even worse, the public to this day identifies Indiana with the LOVE icon, even if to the art world proper he is usually considered one of the … [Read more...]
Robert Barry: Connect the Dots
The New Art History Blessed with hindsight, it is now quite clear that in the late '60s the big question in art was how to include content without compromising abstraction. Pop was too popular, offering the spectacle that the critique far too easily became that which was being attacked. Celebration during the Vietnam War was untenable. Yet … [Read more...]