Robert Indiana: New Perspectives

Self-described as an “American painter of signs,” Robert Indiana (born 1928) has interpreted the postwar American semiotic landscape through a unique merging of Pop's graphic snap with American modernist painting's codes of sexuality and use of advertising designs. Best known for his iconic rendition of the word “love,” over the past 50 years Indiana has created a major body of work that spans the movements of assemblage, hard-edged abstraction and Pop art. This book surveys his career from the early 1960s to the present, also convening new scholarship on this important artist by writers such as Thomas Crow and Robert Storr. Addressing topics ranging from Indiana's politically engaged works, his formative years in the Coentie's Slip artistic community in downtown Manhattan, Indiana's place within Pop and his allegorical depictions of gender and family, this book reevaluates and reorients some of Indiana's most significant works.

For many decades, Robert Indiana has played a second-tier role in the history of American Pop Art (and related movements of various designations); however, according to this well-crafted new study, this engaging, dedicated artist may have been more significant than most scholars realize. After reminding readers from the outset that the "history of art is inherently revisionist", this well-illustrated volume (which includes a range of fresh documentary photographs) renegotiates the critical status of Indiana's work. Through a series of intriguing and insightful essays by Thomas Crow (New York Univ.), Jonathan Katz (Univ. of Buffalo, SUNY), and others, this fresh analysis of Indiana's career places the artist's exploration of iconic imagery (stenciled letters, symbols, signage, and more) into an expanded art historical context, revealing that Indiana's limited canonical position has resulted partly from a creative breadth that was difficult to categorize. (M.R. Freeman Choice)