Pace Gallery Announces Details of Upcoming Robert Indiana Exhibition in New York, Opening May 9
Robert Indiana, LOVE, 1965 PAINTING oil on canvas 12”× 12" (30.5 cm × 30.5 cm)© The Robert Indiana Legacy Initiative, courtesy Pace Gallery
Pace is pleased to announce that it will present Robert Indiana: The American Dream, a major exhibition including seminal examples of paintings and sculpture created by the artist beginning in the early 1960s and developed throughout subsequent decades of his artistic career, to be shown at its 540 West 25th Street gallery in New York from May 9 to August 15.
Robert Indiana, ONE Through ZERO (The Ten Numbers), 1978– 2003, Conceived: 1978; Executed: 2003 SCULPTURE stainless steel on steel base 18" × 18" × 10" (45.7 cm × 45.7 cm × 25.4 cm), including base © The Robert Indiana Legacy Initiative, courtesy Pace Gallery
Examining Indiana’s critique of the duality of the American Dream—both its promise and its privations—this exhibition will highlight the connections between the artist’s personal history and the social, political, and cultural realities of postwar America. Reflecting on the critical and political underpinnings of Indiana’s work, as well as his enduring impact as an artist, Pace’s presentation will include loans from several prominent institutions.
Robert Indiana, Two, 1960-62, cast 1991 SCULPTURE painted bronze 61-1/8" × 18-1/2" × 19-1/2" (155.3 cm × 47 cm × 49.5 cm) © The Robert Indiana Legacy Initiative, courtesy Pace Gallery
One of the preeminent figures in American art since the 1960s, Robert Indiana–born Robert Clark in the state of Indiana in 1928–played a central role in the development of assemblage art, hard-edge painting, and Pop art. Indiana, a self-proclaimed “American painter of signs,” created a highly original body of work that explores American identity, personal history, and the power of abstraction and language. His legacy resonates in the work of many contemporary artists who make the written word a central element of their oeuvre, making him one of the most important figures in the recent history of art.
Robert Indiana, Four Diamond Ping, 2003 PAINTING oil on canvas Four panels, overall: 102" × 102" (259.1 cm × 259.1 cm), diamond Each panel: 51" × 51" (129.5 cm × 129.5 cm) © The Robert Indiana Legacy Initiative, courtesy Pace Gallery
Pace’s exhibition in New York will be accompanied by a new catalogue from Pace Publishing, which will shed light on Indiana’s lifelong artistic engagement with both the aspirations of the American dream and its dark underbelly–the repressed dimensions of American history and society, from colonialism to materialism and commodification. Among the works on view will be the 1961 painting The Calumet, which features the names of Native American tribes, acknowledging the presence of Indigenous life and culture within the subconscious of America; The Black Marilyn (1967/1998), a painting that speaks to the commodification of celebrity and desire in American mass media in the 1960s; and the painted bronze sculpture The American Dream (1992/2015), bearing fundamental words of the human condition: “HUG,” “ERR,” “EAT,” and “DIE.”
Robert Indiana, LOVE (Red Outside Gold Inside), 1966–1999, Conceived: 1966; Executed: 1999 SCULPTURE polychrome aluminum 36" × 36" × 18" (91.4 cm × 91.4 cm × 45.7 cm) © The Robert Indiana Legacy Initiative, courtesy Pace Gallery
Pace’s presentation will also include works from Indiana’s iconic LOVE series, recontextualizing this important and well-known image within his broader practice and tying this motif to other words and ideas—including “EAT” and “DIE”—that recur across his paintings and sculptures, symbols of both personal and universal significance in Indiana’s work. An exhibition at Kasmin Gallery in New York—Robert Indiana: The Source, 1959—1969, highlighting works from the artist’s personal collection—will be presented from February 27 to March 29 in dialogue with Pace Gallery’s Robert Indiana: The American Dream. The Robert Indiana Legacy Initiative, represented by Pace Gallery, and The Star of Hope Foundation, in partnership with Kasmin Gallery, have developed these distinct exhibitions in parallel to explore different aspects of Indiana’s artistic output and offer a diverse set of perspectives on the most formative decade of his career.
Oil 60 6. 12" Robert Indiana, Ginkgo, 2000 on canvas × 50 in. (152.4 × 127 cm) Private collection © Star of Hope Foundation, Vinalhaven, Maine
Today, Indiana’s work can be found in the permanent collections of museums including the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York; the Art Institute of Chicago; the National Gallery of Art, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, and the Smithsonian Museum of American Art in Washington, D.C.; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; the Menil Collection, Houston; Tate Modern, London; the Neue National galerie, Berlin; MUMOK (Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien), Vienna; Museum Ludwig, Cologne; the Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven; and the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, among many other institutions around the world.
In 2013, the Whitney Museum of American Art hosted the artist’s first New York retrospective, Robert Indiana: Beyond LOVE, curated by Barbara Haskell. Indiana passed away in his home in Vinalhaven, Maine, on May 19, 2018, just a few weeks before the opening of his sculpture retrospective at the Buffalo AKG Art Museum, New York (then Albright-Knox Art Gallery). Important posthumous one- artist exhibitions include, Love & Peace: A Robert Indiana Memorial Exhibition, Contemporary Art Foundation, Tokyo (2018); Robert Indiana: A Legacy of Love, McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, Texas (2020); Robert Indiana: Sculpture 1958-2018, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, West Bretton, United Kingdom (2022); Robert Indiana at Rockefeller Center, Rockefeller Center, New York (2023); and Robert Indiana: The Sweet Mystery, Procuratie Vecchie, Venice (2024), among others.
Established in 2022, The Robert Indiana Legacy Initiative aims to increase awareness of and appreciation for the depth and breadth of the work of Robert Indiana and is the leading entity dedicated to the advancement of the artist’s work. Represented worldwide by Pace Gallery, The Robert Indiana Legacy Initiative also manages the website and is responsible for The Robert Indiana Catalogue Raisonné, which is now available online here.
Pace is a leading international art gallery representing some of the most influential contemporary artists and estates from the past century, holding decades-long relationships with Alexander Calder, Jean Dubuffet, Barbara Hepworth, Agnes Martin, Louise Nevelson, and Mark Rothko. Pace enjoys a unique U.S. heritage spanning East and West coasts through its early support of artists central to the Abstract Expressionist and Light and Space movements.
Since its founding by Arne Glimcher in 1960, Pace has developed a distinguished legacy as an artist-first gallery that mounts seminal historical and contemporary exhibitions. Under the current leadership of CEO Marc Glimcher, Pace continues to support its artists and share their visionary work with audiences worldwide by remaining at the forefront of innovation. Now in its seventh decade, the gallery advances its mission through a robust global program— comprising exhibitions, artist projects, public installations, institutional collaborations, performances, and interdisciplinary projects. Pace has a legacy in art bookmaking and has published over five hundred titles in close collaboration with artists, with a focus on original scholarship and on introducing new voices to the art historical canon.
Today, Pace has seven locations worldwide, including European footholds in London and Geneva as well as Berlin, where the gallery established an office in 2023. Pace maintains two galleries in New York—its headquarters at 540 West 25th Street, which welcomed almost 120,000 visitors and programmed 20 shows in its first six months, and an adjacent 8,000 sq. ft. exhibition space at 510 West 25th Street. Pace’s long and pioneering history in California includes a gallery in Palo Alto, which was open from 2016 to 2022. Pace’s engagement with Silicon Valley’s technology industry has had a lasting impact on the gallery at a global level, accelerating its initiatives connecting art and technology as well as its work with experiential artists. Pace consolidated its West Coast activity through its flagship in Los Angeles, which opened in 2022. Pace was one of the first international galleries to establish outposts in Asia, where it operates permanent gallery spaces in Hong Kong and Seoul, along with an office and viewing room in Beijing. In spring 2024, Pace will open its first gallery space in Japan in Tokyo’s new Azabudai Hills development.
For more information about this exhibition and others, please visit the Pace Gallery’s website here. Pace Gallery can be found on Instagram and Artsy, too. For more information about Robert’s artwork and his legacy, please visit here. Star of Hope Foundation information can be found here. Information about the Kasmin Gallery can be found here.
