Painted aluminium. 182.9 x 182.9 x 91.4 cm. (72 x 72 x 36 in). Incised with signature, date and manufacturer details '© 1972-2001 R INDIANA MILGO BROOKLYN NY' and numbered of four artist's proofs on the inside of the A. This work is from an edition of six plus four artist's proofs and is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity.
Often associated with the pop art movement of the 1960s, Robert (Clark) Indiana was not at its center. Rather, he staked out a more interesting artistic position embracing aspects of pop's subjects and techniques but also some of the other stylistic elements and formal concerns of art in that decade, such as minimalist and op art. On the one hand, his letters and numbers share much with the visual linguistics of Jasper Johns or the signs and labels of Andy Warhol. On the other, Indiana's power of formal abstraction and graphic design bring him close to the colourfield reductions of jack Youngerman, Ellsworth Kelly, and early Frank Stella. Indiana's art deserves closer attention not just for his impeccable modulations of figure and ground - The expressive shape of Silhouette – but equally for his colour juxtapositions, at once so blatant yet paradoxically subtle. Finally, whatever inspiration he has found in commercial culture, one measure of his career's achievement has been his reciprocal and indelible impact on contemporary design, where the imitations of his style seldom match the perfections of his forms. (J.Wilmerding 'The Shape Of Meaning', Robert Indiana, NY, 2006)
