All You Need Is Love

Robert Indiana

I'm the kind that talks about peace and love unironically. You can blame it on the Beatles. I still remember sitting in front of the TV watching the Beatles cartoon show and they were singing "Can't Buy Me Love," as in money can't buy you love. I was into it. And then there was "All You Need Is Love," with its koan-like verses and plainspoken refrain. Even a kid like me understood that Lennon was singing as much about agape as about eros. So love was in the air as a thing, as a popular theme. Do you remember how on Otis Redding's Monterrey concert LP he proclaimed, "So this is the love crowd!"? In that spirit, was Robert Indiana's "Love" sculpture. Turning love into a mass commodity isn't cynical, but it is a bit cheeky. The Pop artists definitely played around with commodification. Nevertheless, the love message was real, and I'm a believer. Robert Indiana died yesterday at the age of 89.