Four, from Numbers 1968

Robert Indiana made this screenprint, “Four,” with flat planes of color, probably sometime in the 60’s, when he was doing all of his hard-edged, pop-inspired graphics. The thing about screenprinting is, that it's the opposite of gestural. It’s all about control, and laying down these unmodulated blocks of color. But even in the flattest most deadpan image, you can’t help but see the hand. Look at the way that yellow “four” just barely sits inside that red circle. It’s not perfect. There's a slight wobble in the registration, which gives it a human feel. This kind of serial image-making reminds me of Warhol, and the way he turned soup cans into icons. But Indiana is doing something different, transforming numbers into emblems, things that are both abstract and deeply personal. He makes you think about the unseen systems that organize our lives. He asks, what is four? A number? A word? An image? It's all these things at once, and none of them completely.