A significant work by world renowned artist Robert Indiana is now in place at the Outer Harbor. Indiana’s NUMBERS ONE through ZERO was made possible thanks to a team partnership between the Albight-Knox and the Erie Canal Harbor Development Corporation (ECHDC).
The temporary exhibit is located at Wilkeson Pointe. The 10 giant sculptures, representing numbers One through Zero, are eight-foot-high and made of heavy duty COR-TEN steel. Each piece weighs in at around 2,000 pounds. The sculpture will be in place until October 2019. The installation coincides with a new exhibit at the Albright-Knox – Robert Indiana: A Sculpture Retrospective at the Albright-Knox, which is on view until September 23, 2018.
“We are beyond lucky to host these bold, iconic sculptures by Robert Indiana at Wilkeson Pointe,” said Erie Canal Harbor Development Corporation Chairman Robert Gioia. “When Governor Cuomo announced the Outer Harbor land transfer in 2013, it was just the beginning of a transformative change that would make the property more accessible, active and attractive. NUMBERS ONE through ZERO will bring more people to the Outer Harbor to appreciate both the art, as well as the natural beauty of our waterfront.”
“We are delighted by the opportunity, through this collaboration with ECHDC, to bring such extraordinary public art to the residents of Buffalo and Erie County,” said Albright-Knox Deputy Director Joe Lin-Hill. “This partnership has facilitated extending our current exhibition, Robert Indiana: A Sculpture Retrospective, beyond the museum and into our community, and for that we are very grateful. Visitors to Wilkeson Pointe will have the chance to enjoy Indiana’s work in a serene, natural setting, and we hope they will be inspired to discover more about this important American artist this summer at the Albright-Knox.”
Indiana is probably most known for his iconic LOVE sculpture that has been emblazoned upon the minds of countless people throughout the world. The artist has a way of taking commonplace words and numbers, and creating sensational sculptures that speak to people via their magnetic draw and shear approachability. These are works that anyone can identify with, and in a world of selfies, they are pretty spectacular. I suppose that it’s apropos that today is National Selfie Day.
The numbers at the Outer Harbor are symbolic of the stage of life, according to Indiana, which is something that we can all relate to.
As art historian and curator Barbara Haskell explains, “Numbers had appeared in Indiana’s work even before words, functioning variously as the abstract ‘names’ of his anthropomorphic herms, as metaphors for the passage of time, and as reminders of vernacular American culture.”
For more information on NUMBERS ONE through ZERO, visit Robert Indiana’s website.