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Lot Essay
Robert Indiana's Herm constructions of the 1960s are unique assemblages that allude to the political landscape of Post-War America. U-2 commemorates an incident that took place on May 1, 1960 in which an American U-2 spy plane was shot down by Soviet Union forces during the Cold War. This event resulted in a marked deterioration of American relations with the Soviet Union not to mention, great embarrassment for the Eisenhower administration. U-2 is a piece that demonstrates Indiana's political agenda and serves as his critique against the Cold War. "The idea that such ill-founded or ill-fated events should be memorialized- given a herm or landmark- is the work of a mind trained in irony, with a certain fatalistic view of whether or not right can prevail over wrong" (S.E. Ryan, Figures of Speech, New Haven, 2000, p. 67).
Adorned with an iron carriage wheel, U-2 is a weathered wood beam rescued from an old demolished building marked with a white US Air Force emblem and "U", "2", and "60" stenciled onto different sides of the work. The wooden beams come from old Manhattan structures in Coenties Slip in lower Manhattan, the area in which the artist resided at the time, along with Agnes Martin, Ellsworth Kelly, and Jack Youngerman. Indiana considered the found wood pieces to be sculptures in themselves; he appreciated the beauty of the striations caused by rain damage and age and in his Herm constructions, he would leave the discolorations and scars of the wood exposed.
Indiana's U-2 serves as a consequential precursor to the development of the artist's later works that deal with signs, numbers, and letters- in fact; his Herms are the first works of art in which he employs texts. Indiana believes that assemblage, the use of the found object in the context of art, is part of a great tradition that artists like Marcel Duchamp and Picasso embraced. A heroic figure grounded in patriotic integrity, Indiana's U-2 is a totemic proclamation of the controversy that followed the U-2 incident of 1960 and chronicles American history within its iconoclastic construction.
This work will be included in the forthcoming Robert Indiana catalogue raisonné being prepared by Simon Salama-Caro.
Adorned with an iron carriage wheel, U-2 is a weathered wood beam rescued from an old demolished building marked with a white US Air Force emblem and "U", "2", and "60" stenciled onto different sides of the work. The wooden beams come from old Manhattan structures in Coenties Slip in lower Manhattan, the area in which the artist resided at the time, along with Agnes Martin, Ellsworth Kelly, and Jack Youngerman. Indiana considered the found wood pieces to be sculptures in themselves; he appreciated the beauty of the striations caused by rain damage and age and in his Herm constructions, he would leave the discolorations and scars of the wood exposed.
Indiana's U-2 serves as a consequential precursor to the development of the artist's later works that deal with signs, numbers, and letters- in fact; his Herms are the first works of art in which he employs texts. Indiana believes that assemblage, the use of the found object in the context of art, is part of a great tradition that artists like Marcel Duchamp and Picasso embraced. A heroic figure grounded in patriotic integrity, Indiana's U-2 is a totemic proclamation of the controversy that followed the U-2 incident of 1960 and chronicles American history within its iconoclastic construction.
This work will be included in the forthcoming Robert Indiana catalogue raisonné being prepared by Simon Salama-Caro.