“The Sweet Mystery” at the Procuratie Vecchie is a unique opportunity to embark on an emotional journey through the multifaceted career of one of the protagonists of pop art, best known for the iconic LOVE series.
When approaching Pop Art, there’s always the risk of indulging in a certain cool disposition, almost seeking in its most successful expressions, but also in the less fortunate ones, a sort of cover-story immediacy. This immediacy is then embroidered with conceptual plots, often improbable, in an attempt to give deep substance to a “simple” perception of these works, which are apparently readable to most. In short, among all the art movements of the twentieth century, Pop Art seems to require multiple levels of interpretation, as if its sometimes spectacular immediacy is not enough. Whether it’s Warhol’s Marilyn, Mao, or Campbell’s Soup silkscreens, Rauschenberg’s multiples, Jasper Johns’ flags and targets, or Roy Lichtenstein’s comic book works, despite the profound stylistic and aesthetic differences that separate these artists and their works, there is always an urge to dig beneath the media entertainment-like immediacy of their finished renderings. This excavation is often in vain, sometimes pretentious. Yes, because these works can often suffice for what they convey here and now; because it is precisely in the immediacy of reflecting the prosaic everyday life of consumption that their first, if not always primary, essence rests. Yet, among all the protagonists of this extraordinary artistic season, some truly use an iconically pop language to speak more than others about the inner recesses and personal politics, existential complexity, and social turmoil. Perhaps the most radical in this regard was Robert Indiana, the subject of an extraordinary solo exhibition, a Collateral Event of the 60th Biennale Arte at the Procuratie Vecchie in Piazza San Marco, titled “Robert Indiana: The Sweet Mystery,” taken from one of the first paintings in which Indiana included words, a practice that would characterize much of his career. Known to most for the iconic LOVE series, the exhibition is a unique opportunity to embark on an emotional journey through six decades of his multifaceted artistic career, with the chance to get close to some of his highly significant early works, some of which are rarely exhibited.
The Sweet Mistery: A fascinating new perspective on the work of Robert Indiana
