Love (sculpture)

LOVE is an iconic Pop Art image by American artist Robert Indiana. It consists of the letters LO over the letters VE; the O is canted sideways so that its oblong negative space creates a line leading to the V. The original image, with green and blue spaces backing red lettering, served as a print image for a Museum of Modern Art Christmas card in 1964. In much this same form the design soon graced a popular US postage stamp. Its original rendering in sculpture was made in 1970 and is displayed in Indiana at the Indianapolis Museum of Art. The material is COR-TEN steel Indiana's LOVE design has since been reproduced in a variety of formats for rendering in displays around the world.

Significance

Original inspirations

MoMA historian Deborah Wye describes Indiana's image as "full of erotic, religious, autobiographical, and political underpinnings" that make it "both accessible and complex in meaning. Megan Wilde offered more detail about the autobiographical origins in an article for Mental Floss magazine, "The word love was connected to [the artist's] childhood experiences attending a Christian Science church, where the only decoration was the wall inscription God is Love. The colors were an homage to his father, who worked at a Phillips 66 gas station during the Depression." She quotes Robert Indiana as describing the original colors as "the red and green of that sign against the blue Hoosier sky."

Love Sculpture

Love Sculpture were a Welsh blues-rock band of the late 1960s, led by Dave Edmunds (born David William Edmunds, 15 April 1944, Cardiff, Glamorgan, South Wales), plus bassist John David (born John David Williams, 19 January 1946, Cardiff, South Wales) and drummer Rob 'Congo' Jones (born Robert Jones, 13 August 1946, Barry, Glamorgan, South Wales).

Career

Love Sculpture was founded in Cardiff in 1966 by former members of The Human Beans. The group disbanded in 1970, although Edmunds went on to enjoy solo success in the 1970s. Love Sculpture mostly performed blues standards, slightly revved-up, but still close to the originals. Their debut album, Blues Helping, included songs as "Summertime" and "Wang Dang Doodle".

They are best known for their 1968 novelty hit in the UK Singles Chart, a high speed cover version of the classical piece "Sabre Dance" by Aram Khachaturian, released on the Parlophone label (R 5744), which reached No. 5 in the UK Singles Chart in December 1968. The recording was inspired by Keith Emerson's classical rearrangements. "Sabre Dance" became a hit after receiving air play by British DJ John Peel. In December 1968, the UK music magazine, NME, reported that Love Sculpture had signed a US recording contract with London Records, guaranteeing £250,000. The band were also given an invitation to perform "Sabre Dance" live, on the German Beat-Club television programme of Radio Bremen, being broadcast in monochrome at that time.