Barbara Kruger
Barbara Kruger | |
---|---|
Born | Newark, New Jersey, U.S. | January 26, 1945
Education | |
Known for | Visual art and graphic design |
Movement | Feminism, Pictures Generation |
Awards | Leone D'Oro Venice Biennale Goslarer Kaiserring |
Barbara Kruger (born January 26, 1945) is an American
Kruger lives and works in New York and Los Angeles.[4] She is an Emerita Distinguished Professor of New Genres at the UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture.[5] In 2021, Kruger was included in Time magazine's annual list of the 100 Most Influential People.[6]
Early life and career
Kruger was born into a working-class family
Kruger graduated from
Kruger's earliest works date back to 1969, when she began creating large wall hangings which incorporated materials such as yarn, beads, sequins, feathers, and ribbons. These pieces represented the feminist reclamation of craft during this period.[15] Kruger crocheted, sewed, and painted brightly hued and erotically suggestive objects, some of which were included by curator Marcia Tucker in the 1973 Whitney Biennial.[9] She drew her inspiration for these pieces from Magdalena Abakanowicz's show at the Museum of Modern Art. Although some of these works were included in the Whitney Biennial, Kruger became detached and unsatisfied with her working output.[12] In 1976, she took a break from making what had become more abstract works, feeling that her work had become meaningless and mindless.[10] She then moved to Berkeley, California, where she taught at the University of California and became inspired by the writings of Walter Benjamin and Roland Barthes.[10] In 1977, she returned to making art, working with her own architectural photographs and publishing an art book, Picture/Readings, in 1979.[16] She was inspired to photograph architecture by her family's practice of touring "model homes they could never afford".[17]
At the beginning of her art career, Kruger reportedly felt intimidated by entering New York galleries due to the prevailing atmosphere of the art scene which, to her, did not welcome "particularly independent, non-masochistic women".[10] However, she received early support for her projects from groups such as the Public Art Fund, which encouraged her to continue making art.[17] She switched to her modern practice of collage in the early 1980s.
Artistic practice
Addressing issues of language and sign, Kruger has often been grouped with such feminist postmodern artists as Jenny Holzer, Sherrie Levine, Martha Rosler, and Cindy Sherman.[16] Like Holzer and Sherman, in particular, she uses the techniques of mass communication and advertising to explore gender and identity.[18] She discusses her interest in representing "how we are to one another"[19] and the "broad sort of scope"[19] this provides for her work. Kruger is considered to be part of the Pictures Generation.[20]
Imagery and text
Much of Kruger's work pairs found photographs with pithy and assertive text that challenges the viewer,[9] known as word art.[21][22] Her method includes developing her ideas on a computer, later transferring the results (often billboard-sized) into printed images.[9] Examples of her instantly recognizable slogans include "I shop therefore I am", "Your body is a battleground",[23] and "You are not yourself" appearing in her signature white letters against a red background. Most of her work deals with provocative topics like feminism, consumerism, and individual autonomy and desire, frequently appropriating images from mainstream magazines and using her bold phrases to frame them in a new context.
Kruger has said that, "I work with pictures and words because they have the ability to determine who we are and who we aren't."[24] A recurring element in her work is the appropriation and alteration of existing images. In describing her use of appropriation, Kruger states:
Pictures and words seem to become the rallying points for certain assumptions. There are assumptions of truth and falsity and I guess the narratives of falsity are called fictions. I replicate certain words and watch them stray from or coincide with the notions of fact and fiction.[25]
Her poster for the 1989
Kruger's early monochrome pre-digital works, known as 'paste ups', reveal the influence of the artist's experience as a magazine editorial designer during her early career. These small scale works, the largest of which is 11 x 13 inches (28 x 33 cm), are composed of altered found images, and texts either culled from the media or invented by the artist. A negative of each work was then produced and used to make enlarged versions of these initial 'paste ups'.[27] Between 1978 and 1979, she completed "Picture/Readings", simple photographs of modest houses alternating with panels of words.[9] From 1992 on, Kruger designed covers for a number of magazines, including Ms., Esquire, Newsweek, and The New Republic.[28] Her signature font style of Futura Bold type is likely inspired by the "Big Idea" or "Creative Revolution" advertising style of the 1960s that she was exposed to during her experience at Mademoiselle.[10]
In 1990, Kruger roused the Japanese American community of
In 1995, with architects Henry Smith-Miller and Laurie Hawkinson and landscape architect Nicholas Quennell, she designed the 200-foot-long (60 m) sculptural letters Picture This for a stage and outdoor amphitheater at the North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh.[9]
For a site-specific piece that she produced at the Parrish Art Museum in 1998, Kruger placed across the upper range of the museum's Romanesque facade stark red letters that read, "You belong here"; below, on columns separating three arched entry portals, stacked letters spelled "Money" and "Taste".[30] As part of the Venice Biennale in 2005, Kruger installed a digitally printed vinyl mural across the entire facade of the Italian pavilion, thereby dividing it into three parts—green at the left, red at the right, white in between. In English and Italian, the words "money" and "power" climbed the portico's columns; the left wall said, "Pretend things are going as planned", while "God is on my side; he told me so" filled the right.[31] In 2012, her installation Belief+Doubt, which covers 6,700 square feet (620 m2) of surface area and was printed on wallpaper-like sheets in the artist's signature colors of red, black, and white, was installed at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden.[32]
In 2022, as the arguably most important voice in art for Abortion-rights movements, Kruger created a series of new works in response to the leaked Supreme Court documents that would overturn Roe v. Wade. Kruger said, "The end of Roe was clearly the result of the right's rage-filled campaign to undo women's reproductive health and agency. They have been unrelenting, while the middle and left too often kept silent, seeing the issue as the third rail of American politics, regardless of the poll numbers favoring Roe. For decades, abortion was absent or marginalized at campaign debates."[33][34]
Public transport
In 1994, Kruger's L'empathie peut changer le monde (Empathy can change the world) was installed on a train station platform in
Fashion
In 1984, Kruger created a T-shirt design that featured a blown-up image of a woman's face with text running across the figure's eyes and mouth reading, "I can't look at you ... and breathe at the same time." The shirt was produced as a collaborative project with fashion designer Willi Smith for his WilliWear Productions label.[37]
In 2017, Kruger collaborated with clothing brand Volcom for her contribution to the Performa 17 biennial in New York. She created a pop-up shop in the city's SoHo neighborhood where T-shirts, beanies, sweatshirts, and skateboards were up for sale.[38]
Permanent installations
Between 1998 and 2008, Kruger created permanent installations for the
Other works
Since the mid-1990s, Kruger has created large-scale immersive video and audio installations. Enveloping the viewer with the seductions of direct address, the work continues her questioning of power, control, affection, and contempt: still images now move and speak and spatialize their commentary.[41] In 1997, Kruger produced a series of fiberglass sculptures of compromised public figures, including John F. and Robert F. Kennedy hoisting Marilyn Monroe on their shoulders.[9] In 2016, Kruger created a work protesting the election of Donald Trump for the cover of New York magazine and participated in a January 20, 2017, inauguration boycott.[42][43] For the 2020 edition of the Frieze Art Fair in Los Angeles, she presented a series of 20 questions—including "Who do you think you are?" and "Who dies first? Who laughs last?"—displayed across digital billboards, street banners, landmarks, and public spaces throughout the city.[44]
Teaching
Kruger has taught an Independent Study Program at the
Connections with other artists
Kruger was involved with a group of artists who had graduated from
Exhibitions
In 1979, Barbara Kruger exhibited her first works combining appropriated photographs and fragments of superimposed text at
In 2009, Kruger was included among the seminal artists whose work was exhibited in "
In 2007, Kruger was one of the many artists to be a part of South Korea's Incheon Women Artists' Biennale in Seoul. This marked South Korea's first women's biennial.[51] That same year, she designed "Consider This...", an exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.[52] In September 2009, Kruger's Between Being Born and Dying, a major installation commissioned by the Lever House Art Collection, opened at the New York City architectural landmark Lever House. In 2012, as a member of the board of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA), Kruger volunteered to be the lead funder of the museum's scholarly exhibit Ends of the Earth: Land Art to 1974 and to create a new work on vinyl to sell, with proceeds going entirely toward the show's $1 million budget.[53] An exhibition of new and recent work from Kruger was hosted by Modern Art Oxford in 2014.[54] In 2016, as part of the celebration of the reopening of the East Building Tower Gallery following years of renovation, The National Gallery of Art created an exhibition showcasing 13 works by Barbara Kruger.[55]
From September 19, 2021, to January 24, 2022, Barbara Kruger: Thinking of You, I Mean Me, I Mean You is a broad comprehensive, immersive exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago, traveling to Los Angeles County Museum of Art ( LACMA ) from March 20, 2022, to July 17, 2022.[56]
Kruger's words and pictures have been displayed in both galleries and public spaces, as well as offered as framed and unframed photographs, posters, postcards, T-shirts, electronic signboards, façade banners, and billboards.
Personal life
Kruger lives in the Beachwood Canyon neighborhood of Los Angeles.[57][58]
Recognition
The
Art market
Kruger's first dealer was
In late 2011, Kruger's 1985 photo of a ventriloquist's dummy, Untitled (When I Hear the Word Culture I Take Out My Checkbook), was sold at Christie's for a record $902,500.[32]
Supreme lawsuit
Books
- Whitney Museum of American Art
- Barbara Kruger: January 7 to 28, 1989 by Barbara Kruger, Mary Boone Gallery, 1989
- Barbara Kruger: January 5 to 26, 1991 by Barbara Kruger, 1991
- Remote Control: Power, Cultures, and the World of Appearances by Barbara Kruger, 1994
- Love for Sale by Kate Linker, 1996
- Remaking History (Discussions in Contemporary Culture, No 4) by Barbara Kruger, 1998
- Thinking of You, 1999 (The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles)
- Barbara Kruger by Angela Vettese, 2002
- Money Talks by Barbara Kruger and Lisa Phillips, 2005
- Barbara Kruger by Barbara Kruger, Rizzoli 2010
Film and video
- "The Globe Shrinks". 2010
- "Pleasure, Pain, Desire, Disgust". 1997
- "Twelve". 2004
- Bulls on Parade video clip, Rage Against the Machine (1996)
- "Art in the Twenty-First Century". 2001
- "Cinefile: Reel Women". 1995
- "Picturing Barbara Kruger". 2015[71]
See also
- Art & Language
- You Are Not Yourself, 1981 work by Kruger
- Feminist art movement in the United States
- Shepard Fairey
- Emi Fontana
- Jenny Holzer
- Martin Firrell
- Louise Lawler
- Mike Kelley
- Joel Wachs, Los Angeles City Council member who helped Kruger get permission for an outdoor art piece[72]
References
- ^ "Barbara Kruger, Ad Industry Heroine". Slate. July 19, 2000. Retrieved January 10, 2017.
- ^ "Female Iconoclasts: Barbara Kruger". Artland Magazine. September 18, 2020. Retrieved October 10, 2021.
- ^ "UCLA Department of Art | Faculty". www.art.ucla.edu. Archived from the original on May 11, 2021. Retrieved October 10, 2021.
- ^ a b "Barbara Kruger". PBS. Retrieved April 14, 2014.
- ^ "UCLA Department of Art | Faculty". www.art.ucla.edu. Archived from the original on May 11, 2021. Retrieved December 28, 2019.
- ^ a b "Barbara Kruger: The 100 Most Influential People of 2021". Time. Retrieved October 10, 2021.
- ISBN 0-415-91934-7. (from page 764)
- ^ Dashkin, Michael (February 27, 2009). "Barbara Kruger, b. 1945". Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Drohojowska-Philp, Hunter (October 17, 1999). "She Has a Way With Words" Los Angeles Times.
- ^ ISBN 0262112507.
- ISBN 0-87663-640-7. Retrieved March 5, 2012. "Barbara Kruger B. 1945 ..."
- ^ a b "Barbara Kruger, American (1945– )". Rhode Island Gallery. March 17, 2017.
- ^ Barbara Kruger: in her own words, retrieved August 9, 2023
- ^ "Biography – Barbara Kruger – Photograph Collage, Advertising, Slogans, Art". Barbara Kruger. Retrieved July 30, 2014.
- ^ "Barbara Kruger, American (1945– )". Rhode Island Gallery. March 17, 2017.
- ^ a b Barbara Kruger, Untitled (When I hear the word culture I take out my checkbook) (1985) Christie's Evening Sale of Works from the Peter Norton Collection, November 8, 2011, New York.
- ^ a b c Bollen, Christopher (February 28, 2013). "Barbara Kruger". Interview. Retrieved March 11, 2017.
- ^ Read My Lips: Jenny Holzer, Barbara Kruger, Cindy Sherman, June 6 – August 9, 1998 National Gallery of Australia.
- ^ ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved March 9, 2021.
- ^ Eklund, Douglas. Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History: The Pictures Generation. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
- ^ Cohen, Alina (January 5, 2019). "13 Artists Who Highlight the Power of Words". Artsy. Retrieved May 19, 2021.
- ^ "Word Art: Text-based Painting, Prints, Sculpture". Art Encyclopedia. Visual-Arts-Cork.com. Retrieved May 19, 2021.
- ^ Barbara Kruger Explains Her Cover for New York Magazine, a Politically Charged Polemic Against The End of Roe v. Wade|Artnet News
- ^ Barbara Kruger: Circus, December 15, 2010 – January 30, 2011 Archived December 24, 2010, at the Wayback Machine Kunsthalle Schirn, Frankfurt.
- ^ Kruger, Barbara; Prince, Richard (Spring 1982). "Interview with Barbara Kruger and Richard Prince", Bomb.
- ^ Bollen, Christopher (February 13, 2013). "Barbara Kruger". Interview. Retrieved July 30, 2014.
- ^ Barbara Kruger: Paste Up, November 21, 2009 – January 23, 2010, Sprüth Magers Gallery, London.
- ^ Hagen, Charles (June 14, 1992). "Barbara Kruger: Cover Girl". The New York Times.
- ^ a b Knight, Christopher (December 14, 2010). "MOCA's mural mess". Los Angeles Times.
- ^ Johnson, Ken (August 6, 2004). "The Hamptons, A Playground For Creativity". The New York Times.
- ^ Knight, Christopher (June 21, 2005). "Fueled by politics". Los Angeles Times.
- ^ a b Crow, Kelly (August 2, 2012). "An Artist Has Her Say—All Over a Museum's Lobby and Store". The Wall Street Journal.
- ^ Cascone, Sarah (May 10, 2022). "Barbara Kruger Explains Her Cover for New York Magazine, a Politically Charged Polemic Against the End of Roe v. Wade". Artnet News. Retrieved May 22, 2022.
- ^ "As Roe vs. Wade teeters, Barbara Kruger's 'Your body is a battleground' takes on urgency". Los Angeles Times. May 3, 2022. Retrieved May 22, 2022.
- ^ Blume, Howard (October 8, 2012). "Campaign launched to promote arts education in L.A. Unified". Los Angeles Times.
- ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved September 26, 2021.
- ISBN 978-0-8478-6819-3.
- ^ Claire Selvin (August 6, 2020), Barbara Kruger's Strange, Alluring Text-Based Artworks: How the Artist Critiqued Advertising and Rose to Fame ARTnews.
- ^ Barbara Kruger: Another, 2008 University of California, San Diego.
- ^ Barbara Kruger, 8 May 2008 – 11 September 2011 Moderna Museet.
- ^ Barbara Kruger: The Globe Shrinks, September, 3 – October 23, 2010, Sprüth Magers Gallery, Berlin.
- ^ "Trump the Loser, according to Kruger". The Art Newspaper. October 31, 2016. Retrieved October 31, 2016.
- ^ "Don't boycott, make protest art!". trumpprotestart.org. January 13, 2017. Archived from the original on March 11, 2018. Retrieved January 13, 2017.
- ^ Claire Selvin (August 6, 2020), Barbara Kruger's Strange, Alluring Text-Based Artworks: How the Artist Critiqued Advertising and Rose to Fame ARTnews.
- ^ Wexner Center Residency Awards Archived May 25, 2012, at the Wayback Machine Wexner Center for the Arts.
- ^ Barbara Kruger to be Wiegand Foundation Artist in Residence at Scripps Archived July 1, 2013, at the Wayback Machine Scripps College, Claremont.
- ^ a b Roux, Caroline (May 9, 2011). "Barbara Kruger: Slogans that shake society". The Independent.
- ^ Barbara Kruger, October 17, 1999 – February 13, 2000 Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.
- ^ "2022 Whitney Biennial talk with Art Critic, Ricky Amadour". New York Said. April 26, 2022. Retrieved May 22, 2022.
- ^ McLean, Matthew; Alemani, Cecilia (April 22, 2022). "Cecilia Alemani: 'I Think the Shows Have Become More Professional or More Perfected, and Kind of Lost'". Frieze. Retrieved May 22, 2022.
- ^ "South Korea Kicks off First Women's Biennial", Art+Auction, November 6, 2007, retrieved April 16, 2008
- LACMA
- ^ Boehm, Mike (March 28, 2012). "MOCA bets on festival's star power". Los Angeles Times.
- ^ "Barbara Kruger: 28 June – 31 August". Modern Art Oxford.
- ^ "In the Tower: Barbara Kruger". www.nga.gov. Retrieved October 10, 2021.
- ^ "Barbara Kruger: Thinking of You. I Mean Me. I Mean You". The Art Institute of Chicago. September 19, 2021. Retrieved October 10, 2021.
- ^ "She Has a Way With Words". Los Angeles Times. October 17, 1999. Archived from the original on January 3, 2022. Retrieved January 3, 2022.
- ^ "Old Hollywood Lives on in Beachwood Canyon". www.yahoo.com. January 15, 2020. Retrieved January 3, 2022.
- ^ "9th MOCA Distinguished Women in the Arts Luncheon". www.moca.org. Retrieved March 20, 2020.
- ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved March 20, 2020.
- ^ "Barbara Kruger" Archived February 28, 2014, at the Wayback Machine Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. Retrieved April 14, 2014.
- ^ Miller, Julie (October 7, 2012). "Steve Martin and Rachel Maddow Toast World-Renowned Artists at the Hammer Museum; Katy Perry Toasts Nail Art". Vanity Fair.
- ^ "Barbara Kruger and Catherine Opie resign from MOCA board". Los Angeles Times. July 14, 2012. Retrieved March 20, 2020.
- ^ Boehm, Mike; Vankin, Deborah (March 19, 2014). "Artists return to MOCA board". Los Angeles Times.
- ^ Spears, Dorothy (August 24, 2010). "Resurgent Agitprop in Capital Letters". The New York Times.
- ^ a b Solomon, Tessa (November 21, 2019). "Artist Barbara Kruger, Long Loyal to Recently Jailed Mary Boone, Heads to David Zwirner Gallery". ARTnews.
- ^ Deleon, Jian (May 1, 2013). "Supreme™ Court: The 12 Greatest Moments of Supreme's Legal Battle With Leah McSweeney". Complex. Retrieved March 11, 2017.
- ^ Kamer, Foster (May 2, 2013). "Barbara Kruger Responds to Supreme's Lawsuit: 'A Ridiculous Clusterf**k of Totally Uncool Jokers'". Complex. Retrieved March 11, 2017.
- ^ Kamer, Foster (July 1, 2013). "The Battle of Supreme™ vs. Married to the Mob is Over, and This Is Why". Complex. Retrieved March 11, 2017.
- ^ "Watch Hasan Minhaj Pivot From Streetwear Brand Supreme to Barbara Kruger, Max Veblen, and the Carlyle Group". Slate. November 19, 2018.
- ^ "Picturing Barbara Kruger directed by Pippa Bianco". November 11, 2014. Retrieved February 27, 2016 – via Vimeo.
- ^ Work titled "Pleanty" for the art initiative West of Rome in the 2008 project "Women in the City" Curated by West of Rome's creative director Emi Fontana.http://www.womeninthecity.org/
Further reading
- Heyd, Milly (1999). Mutual Reflections. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press. ISBN 0-8135-2618-3.
- Jewish women in America. 1: A - L. New York: Routledge. 1997. ISBN 0-415-91934-7.
- Janson, Horst Woldemar; Janson, Anthony F. (2004). History of Art. Prentice Hall Professional. ISBN 0-13-182895-9.
- Kruger, Barbara (July 1, 1982). "'Taking' Pictures". Screen. 23 (2): 90–96. ISSN 1460-2474.
- Kruger, Barbara; Linker, Kate (1990). Love for Sale. New York: ABRAMS. ISBN 978-0-8109-1219-9.
- Femme brut(e), [exhibition catalogue] New London: Lyman Allyn Art Museum, 2006.
- Rankin, A. (March 1, 1987). "'Difference' and Deference". Screen. 28 (1): 91–101. ISSN 0036-9543.
External links
- Biography, interviews, essays, artwork images and video clips from Art:21 -- Art in the Twenty-First Century– Season 1 (2001).
- Barbara Kruger at the Museum of Modern Art
- Kruger collection at the Broad Art Foundation
- Jewish Women's Archive page
- Art Story page