Barbara Kruger
Barbara Kruger (born on January 26th, 1945) is an American craftsman and collagist related with The Pictures Generation. The vast majority of her work comprises of high contrast photos (black and white), overlaid with explanatory inscriptions, expressed in white-on-red Futura Strong Oblique or Helvetica Ultra condensed content. The expressions in her works frequently incorporate pronouns, for example, "you", "your", "I", "we", and "they", tending to social developments of force, character, commercialization, and sexuality. Kruger lives and works in New York and Los Angeles. Kruger is a Recognized Educator/professor of New Genres at the UCLA School of Arts & Architecture.
Kruger takes images from mass media and pastes words over them with bold pieces of texts, slogans and questions.
Untitled (your body is a battleground) FACE IT (GREEM)
"I shop therefore I am" (1987, screen-print on vinyl, 125 x 125 cm) is an interesting piece about our constant consumerism culture. Kruger's work is associated with today's consumerism and the slogan was inspired by the French philosopher Rene Descartes " I Think Therefore I am."
This piece was relevant during the 1980s as the society saw an economic potential of working people and broadening economies. This shift had a significant effect on how people consumed.
Barbara's work is also relevant now as our consumerist society gets worse as the years go by. People always want the next, best new thing. This relates to my topic of fashion and consumerism during the pandemic. Shopping is a way to get temporary happiness in a world that is so dim right now.
Kruger's work is admirable and eye-catching, it makes you truly think about the topics of life at hand. She achieves this by using her signature red colour as a contras to the photo itself. To me, the text is more important than the image behind as the composition of the text is placed right at the centre of your eye and the bold "I" makes the viewer feel personally connected or even conflicted as we are all responsible for negative consumerism. Over all I like her work for the fact that it's straight forward with no room for mistakes or wrong interpretations and as an artist you should always strive to get your point across. This is something I really need to consider following up with my work.
Rosenbaum, R., 2021. Barbara Kruger's Artwork Speaks Truth to Power. [online] Smithsonian Magazine. Available at: <https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/barbara-krugers-artwork-speaks-truth-to-power-137717540/> [Accessed 18 April 2021].
IvanBjørn. 2021. Barbara Kruger: Avant-garde & the social context of art — IvanBjørn. [online] Available at: <https://ivanbjorn.com/blog/2019/8/26/barbara-kruger-avant-garde-amp-the-social-context-of-art> [Accessed 18 April 2021].
Tate. 2021. Barbara Kruger born 1945 | Tate. [online] Available at: <https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/barbara-kruger-1443> [Accessed 18 April 2021].
Publicdelivery.org. 2021. Barbara Kruger's I shop therefore I am - What you should know. [online] Available at: <https://publicdelivery.org/barbara-kruger-i-shop/> [Accessed 18 April 2021].
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