The Big Eight

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The Big Eight

Robert Indiana , 1968
Acrylic on canvas, 220 cm × 220 cm
Museum Ludwig , Cologne

The Big Eight (German: "The Big Eight") is a painting by the American Pop Art artist Robert Indiana from 1968. The 220.7 × 220 cm picture standing on a corner is in the Museum Ludwig in Cologne and shows a big red “8” on a blue background.

Image description

On the square painting, which is hung on a corner, there is a red eight on a blue background. This is surrounded by a white border that forms a circle on the outside and a regular octagon on the inside , with a corner of the octagon at each corner of the picture. The circle is interrupted at the corners of the octagon, so that eight similar arch elements are created. The circle itself almost touches the outer edge of the picture on the sides.

Classification in the overall work

Numbers and counting play a prominent role in Indiana work. The artist saw in them diverse references, a symbolic meaning behind the numbers and their potential relationships with one another, to dates of birth and significant events, as well as to his own biography. Historical data, the numbers of highways ( Route 66 ), numbers on slot machines, gas meters and car signs stand alongside words from texts by poets or words he found on commercial templates and are linked together and woven into a network of references.

Jasper Johns (external web link)

In the case of the big eight, the deeper meaning is not immediately recognizable and, when viewed directly, could only be related to the eight arched elements in the center of which it is located. The number that is shown as a digit , however, seems to be a form alone and thus points to well-known number paintings by Jasper Johns . Unlike the latter, he does not place the number in a painterly setting, but rather transposes it boldly in a non- abstract painting. The apparently monochrome elements (the background actually consists of fine, differently blue individual stripes) look like a template and the red-blue contrast of the square on top and the border make a reference to the numbering of street signs , which represent a large part of the number pictures Robert Make out Indianas.

literature

Note: The externally linked images are protected by copyright and are not subject to the GNU FDL .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The Big Eight. In: Klaus Honnef: Pop Art. Taschen GmbH, Cologne 2006, pp. 44–45