An artist and his innate ability to immerse himself in time: Robert Indiana at the Procuratie Vecchie in St. Mark’s Square.
One of the most iconic contemporary artists is the focus of Collateral Event at the 2024 Venice Art Biennale Robert Indiana: The Sweet Mystery, curated by Matthew Lyons. A prominent figure in American art and an influential pop artist, Robert Indiana (1928–2018) was capable of the deepest affinity with the spirit of his time. A Mid-westerner who got his art education in Chicago and in Europe, Indiana moved to New York in 1954, then still as Robert Clark, his birth name. With little to spend on art supplies, he resorted to make art installations with scrap materials, while developing a bi-dimensional pictorial language thanks to his friendship with fellow artists like Ellsworth Kelly, Agnes Martin, James Rosenquist, Cy Twombly, and Jack Youngerman.
In the early 1960s, Indiana made bold paintings: pure geometries, lettering, numbers in stark contrast that counter the visual culture of consumerism. His art is rich in personal memories and biographical details, and it explores the universal issues of human condition and faith in troubled times. A choice of forty pieces, paintings and sculptures, display over fifty years of Indiana’s production, and include many juvenilia that rarely make it to public exhibits.
