USA, along with Die (1962/1984) and Ash (1985), is one of three constructions by Indiana to incorporate an animal skull. While in the two earlier works the skulls allude to the theme of mortality, in USA the skull, which has been painted red, white, blue, and yellow, references folk art traditions and the iconography of the American southwest, illustrating the artist’s enduring fascination with American roadside aesthetics.
The verso of USA incorporates the central element of an earlier work, Triptych, which was comprised of three wall constructions from early 1960, and exhibited in 1984 at National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C, in Wood Works: Constructions by Robert Indiana. The left and right elements of Triptych were incorporated into the sculpture Hero (1992).