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Installation view with six of Indiana's columns - all have two wheels at the bottom and a band of gold paint along the top, as well as either red or black text wrapping around the works.

The biennial’s biggest surprise comes from an unlikely place: Robert Indiana, an artist who has unfortunately been pigeonholed by a middlebrow public art reputation. This posthumous show does the work to right this wrong, laying out a legacy of radically beautiful and adventurous works beginning with Indiana’s first years in Coenties Slip, a hallowed wisp of history on the docks of what has now been rebranded as New York’s South Street Seaport.

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Installation view of Robert Indiana: The Sweet Mystery, Procuratie Vecchie, Venice, April 20–November 24, 2024. Left to right, Zenith (1960), Soul (1960), and Ginkgo (1960). Photo: Marco Cappelletti

Installation view of Robert Indiana: The Sweet Mystery, Procuratie Vecchie, Venice, April 20–November 24, 2024. Left to right, Zenith (1960), Soul (1960), and Ginkgo (1960). Photo: Marco Cappelletti