Robert Indiana's Pre-LOVE Alchemy Years at Almine Rech Paris

Almine Rech in Paris presents its first solo exhibition devoted to Robert Indiana, organized with the Robert Indiana Legacy Initiative. The show, titled Alchemy, focuses on the years before LOVE, when Indiana scavenged rusted beams and wheels from abandoned warehouses around the Port of New York. Born Robert Clark in 1928 in Indiana — the state that gave him his surname — he moved in 1956 to Coenties Slip at the tip of Manhattan, where his neighbors included Ellsworth Kelly and Agnes Martin, deliberately removed from Abstract Expressionist ferment. There he turned port refuse into totems covered with letters and numbers. Short words — EAT, HUG, ERR, DIE — loop in a manner recalling Gertrude Stein and come to resemble American roadside signage. Andy Warhol filmed him eating a mushroom, and that fixed shot became Eat. Indiana called this transformation alchemy, identifying it in 1961, when junk became art and dross became gold. The Column, Herm and Orb series reveal the painter of LOVE as assembler and poet before the brand. The exhibition runs from 17 October 2026 to 23 January 2027 at 64 rue de Turenne, 75003 Paris, near Métro Saint-Sébastien-Froissart, open Tuesday to Saturday, 11am–7pm, with free entry.