Skip to content
The Upside
Link copied to clipboard
Link copied to clipboard

LOVE is alive on the plaza

Artist Robert Indiana's iconic status withstands the test of time.

Love Park was almost completely deserted on a recent Sunday morning except for one pedestrian passing through.
Love Park was almost completely deserted on a recent Sunday morning except for one pedestrian passing through.Read moreMICHAEL BRYANT / Staff Photographer

A lone visitor strolls past artist Robert Indiana’s iconic LOVE statue on quiet midweek morning. For two years, the statue was missing from the location while JFK Plaza underwent a $26 million renovation.

During that time, the statue underwent a restoration of its own, receiving a fresh coating of paint in its original colors of red, green, and purple. (A previous paint job in 1988 misinterpreted the sun-bleached purple as a light blue, which was corrected.)

Indiana, who died in 2018 at the age of 89, created other versions of the statue, including one in his home state of Indiana and another in Israel. The design, which has withstood the ravages of wind, rain, snow, crowds, and time, stands as a testament to love’s endurance.