I Love You by Roberto Behar and Rosario Marquardt of R&R Studios is the fourth installation in the Site See: New Views in Old Town annual public art series. I Love You seeks to capture the public’s imagination and move beyond an installation into a fantastic dreamscape where friendship and camaraderie are celebrated in the heart of Alexandria.
The installation features the words “I Love You” illuminated in pink neon lights. Mounted 15 feet high, the scripted letters will bathe viewers in a soft pink hue. The central area of the park will showcase a hand-painted ground mural of a pink and white carpet, defining the space as an open room belonging to everyone. It’s an unexpected and luminous social space that invites visitors to get lost for a few moments in this fictional realm.
Behar and Marquardt describe the artwork as “an instant landmark that brings people together with a simultaneously universal and personal message, eliciting positive civic action and an avalanche of personal memories, desires and recollections.”
Roberto Behar and Rosario Marquardt are founding partners of R&R Studios. They received diplomas in architecture from the Universidad Nacional de Rosario in Argentina and later attended the Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies in New York City. They have taught, lectured and served as visiting critics at major universities including Harvard GSD, Yale University, Cornell University, Universita IUAV di Venezia, and the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne; and have been visiting artists and fellows at the Getty Research Center in Los Angeles and the American Academy in Rome. Their practice has been recognized with multiple awards and over 350 publications worldwide. Their work has been exhibited internationally in solo and group museums shows and is in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art in Buenos Aires, the Archives d’Architecture Moderne in Brussels, the Perez Art Museum Miami, and Madison MOCA among others. They are currently working on three permanent large public art projects at Princeton University. Roberto Behar is a professor at the University of Miami School of Architecture.
