On Feb. 7, the University of Utah unveiled the “LOVE” sculpture to a reception of donors, including the Eccles and Price families.

“This piece of art is especially special to all of us, because it really encapsulates what our state and community and university for generations has been about,” Lisa Eccles said. “And it’s about caring for each other and lifting each other.”

Sculpture

The statue is located next to the Utah Museum of Fine Arts (UMFA), having been moved from its previous location on 6th Avenue and 55th Street in New York City. “For some 20 years, many of us in this room have probably had our pictures taken in New York in front of that very same sculpture,” Gretchen Dietrich, the Executive Director of the Museum of Fine Arts, said. “It is truly thrilling that the acquisition of this amazing artwork has come to fruition. Now it is a highlight of the UMFA permanent collection.”

The artwork cost $4.5 million, with roughly half the money coming from the state of Utah. The other half came from private donors. “The State of Utah does put a high premium on art, and spends a little bit of every construction project we have on public art,” President Taylor Randall said.

Robert Indiana originally designed the sculpture “LOVE” (red outside, blue inside) in 1970. The U acquired one of the nine 12ft by 12 ft by 6ft statues in the world. “Adapted to a best selling US postal stamp, it became one of the most beloved pop art images across art, design and popular culture,” Dietrich said. “I have no doubt that this work of art will become a much loved landmark and touchstone for our campus and broader community.”

LOVE

Randall said that the reasoning behind acquiring the statue was to “fundamentally inspire students.”

“We bring students to this university to fundamentally inspire, and we try to inspire their intellect,” Randall said. “But we also try to teach them about emotion and how emotion moves society. It is the role of this institution to create positive change, and so to have a statute that screams love in the midst of often chaos, competition and argument, I think, is what puts our priority, both as a society and as an institution, into perspective.”

Dietrich said that she hoped that the sculpture would encourage students into a “sense of quest and daring, and growth.”

“The great American author James Baldwin wrote and thought a lot about love,” she said. “In 1963, he wrote in his book ‘The Fire Next Time’: ‘I use the word love, not merely in a personal sense, but as a state of being or a state of grace, not in the infantile American sense of being made happy, but in the tough and universal sense of quest and daring and growth,'” she said. “I hope we all agree that one’s experience in university should be just that, a time of quest and daring and growth. I’d like to think we collectively aim to support students to achieve that as they encounter great works of art.”

[email protected]

@lucafinndig.bsky.social