The age of modernism brought to the fore a revolution in the art making process. It opened doors to the different possibilities in which we interpret and consume art but most importantly, its contributions brought forth an evolution that continues to influence the work of contemporary artists today. As we attempt to find meaning and explore the notion of what art can be within present-day society, there are many key elements within modernism that may be readily denoted in a contemporary artist’s work. When we analyze Barbara Kruger’s work, the key components in modernism become apparent, thereby making the work significant in the age of contemporary art.
The women’s liberation movement began in the 1970s simultaneous with the civil rights movement. Feminist art was on the rise and many emerging female artists began making self-described feminist art. During the early 70s, Kruger was making artwork using textiles such as weaving and painting—materials that would be classified as craft and would be subsumed within the category of the feminine. She later decided to abandon this aesthetic because she felt it had no significant impact or meaning and consequently stopped making art to then teach at the University of California in Berkley. [1] In 1977, moving away from her previous aesthetic, she began making the work we now know today. [1]
Barbara Kruger was born in Newark, New Jersey in 1945 and studied at Syracuse University and Parsons School of Design; however, her education was brief and she later began to work as a graphic designer for a publications company at Mademoiselle magazine. [1] This was her initial encounter with image and text which served as the pivotal turning point for her work. Furthermore, her background is equally important in the way we understand her art because it has influenced and set the foundation for her image-making process. Kruger is an important artist to the feminist art movement for the reason that her work is deeply rooted in challenging societal norms. Her gender-address invites the viewers' active participation and critical analysis to reinterpret appropriated images juxtaposed with seemingly hostile text. Her work provokes the questioning of the media’s role within society as well as how we consume art. Yet most importantly because of the nature of experimenting with different environments and methods of delivery, it also challenges previously held notions established by the art mecca institutions we know today.
Understanding through play
Few have been able to accomplish what Kruger accomplished in her work. Much of the feminist artwork emerging from the 70s tended to have biased opinions on the notion of a woman’s role in society and for the most part approached the subject matter less objectively and more on the basis of feelings. [7] Their work tended to gravitate more towards emotion and less on philosophical and anthropological grounding, therefore, detracting from the ability to reestablish some credit as to the redefining of gender roles and the importance of women as artists in society be it in a historical or contemporary context. [7] In an interview with W.J.T. Mitchell, Kruger repeatedly brings up her disinterest in the binary, of taking a stance against or for an ideology. [3] Additionally, her interests remain in questioning and challenging the viewer by bringing doubt rather than answering questions. [6] Kruger does not believe in the categorization of groups such as feminist art or black art, she’s interested in opening and liberating debate to create new ways of understanding and meaning. [6] Kruger is taking a position and forming a new ideology which does assimilate to the current patterns of art making and notions of feminism. This is a new approach and aesthetic, was innovative of its time and can be very well considered avant-garde.
Barbara Kruger. Untitled (You Construct Intricate Rituals) (1981)
It is not difficult to decipher meaning in Kruger’s work. As her work is explicit but not direct, it has a “distance in speech.” This requires the viewer's active participation and critical analysis. [2] Her work challenges not only the viewer with regards to the status quo but also the art institutions in relation to its traditional methods of art making, analysis and philosophical debate. Some of her work can be exhibited in galleries, others on printed media or installed in outside public spaces such as billboards. Kruger challenges the way we consume art and plays with different outlets outside of the institutions which have been dictating art consumption for years. Furthermore, by utilizing different outlets for exhibition, the work itself takes on another important element: the mainstream outlets of consumption. Kruger is using advertisement’s language to create new forms of communication. Ready-made or, rather, appropriated images in combination with antagonistic text, recontextualizes the image’s initial intended purpose, namely the continued perpetuation of the female role in society. However, this new form of communication takes on a gender-address which is ultimately feminist and which consequently questions the dominant patriarchal view of the time. [2]
Barbara Kruger, It’s a small world but not if you have to clean it (1990), Photographic silkscreen on vinyl, 143 x 103 in. (363.2 x 261.6 cm), Image courtesy: The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
Appropriation in modernism is very prevalent as artists come up with new aesthetics for redefining art. The question remains on the ethicality of such practices and Kruger seems to have experienced legal issues with her collage It’s a small world but not if you have to clean it (1990). In 2000, Kruger and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles was sued by German photography Thomas Hoepker and Charlotte Dabney on account of copyright violation and violation of privacy for using Hoepker’s 1960 image Charlotte. [4] The case was dismissed because Hoepker never filed for U.S. copyright and two years after the copyright ran out, Kruger created the work. [4] Hoepker never asked Kruger to remove the image prior to filing suit and therefore, had no recourse toward gaining favor with the courts. [4] Conversely, Kruger as well as artists that came before, such as Duchamp (who is primarily credited for the culture of appropriation), have been incorporating this aesthetic in their work. Overall, the redefining and recontextualizing of the image makes it new but it’s questionable whether the appropriate course of action may be to obtain permission from the original artist or copyright owner. To add further, Kruger had no comments regarding the dispute. [4]
Barbara Kruger, We don’t need another hero. Overall: 108 7/8 × 209 3/16 × 2 1/2in. (276.5 × 531.3 × 6.4 cm) (1987), Image courtesy: Whitney Museum of American Art
On the rise
Kruger’s work is currently in the collection of the Museum of the Modern Art in New York, Tate in London, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, as well as in other international and domestic institutions. [5] In 1973, she exhibited work in the Whitney Biennial and had solo exhibition shows at John Doyle Gallery in Chicago in 1976 and in 1979 at the Franklin Furnace Archive in New York. [5] In the 1980s, through the Public Art Funds as part of the “Messages to the Public” series, she was able to create public artworks such as in New York’s Time Square where a digital billboard displayed messages such as “I’m not trying to sell you anything” and “I just want you to think about what you see when you watch the news on t.v.” [5] In 1988, a billboard was installed in Brooklyn with the message “We don’t need another hero.” [5] On a side note, in an interview with W.J.T. Mitchell, Kruger was asked regarding the latter piece and the fact that it had printed along the bottom of the billboard “A Foster and Kleiser Public Message.” To which she responded that they just put that on the billboard and that she was happy that it was there because “it in fact puts these words in the mouths of this corporate group which she thinks is great! To see that sort of enterprise saying ‘we don’t need another hero’ is terrific!” [3] Additionally, from 1999-2000 she had a mid-career retrospective that traveled from the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles to the Whitney Museum in New York. [5] In 2002, as part of the Schirn Kunsthalle’s exhibition “Shopping: A Century of Art and Consumer Culture,” her work “Untitled (Shopping)” covered the front of the Kaufhof Department Store with the German words “You want it. You buy it. You Forget It.” [5] In an interview with Schirn, Kruger mentions that the biggest installation she’s ever done is Frankfurt because it was the only place there could have been a collaboration between a museum, the city, and a department store and that she couldn’t see that happening anywhere else and in that scale. [6]
In retrospect
In the 1971 essay “Why Have There Been No Great Woman Artists” Linda Nochlin, states that the feminist movement of the time must come to “grips with the intellectual and ideological basis of various intellectual or scholarly disciplines—history, philosophy, sociology, psychology, etc.—in the same way that it questions the ideologies of present social institutions.” She further elaborates that the current movement is based on subjective and emotional needs, consequently failing to address the issues which the movement brings forth. [7] Taking into consideration Kruger’s work, it becomes apparent that she breaks through this emerging feminist art of the time by attempting to open debate with the current socio-political issues. The work confronts the viewer by challenging and bringing awareness to the issues at hand. Furthermore, by assimilating the aesthetic and characteristic methods of media and advertisement, Kruger is creating the opportunity for the progression and continuation of an open discussion.
Clement Greenberg’s essay “Modernist Painting,” states that “the essence of Modernism lies, as I see it, in the use of characteristic methods of a discipline to criticize the discipline itself, not in order to subvert it but in order to entrench it more firmly in its area of competence.” [8] Moreover, in an interview with W.J.T. Mitchell, Kruger was asked if the “word-image composite” known to the advertisement and commercial domain would make it possible for a new public art given that modernism set the tone in the current state of public art where its “unreadability” makes it far removed from public understanding and instead stands as a “private symbol.” [3] Kruger agreed and proceeded to mentioned that through image and text we have learned and developed a language of understanding which derived from advertisement and technological advancement in the fields of photography, film, and video. [3] However, although there’s a common language, it’s still not the same as creating meaning. In fact, Kruger states it does the opposite. [3]
“Although we are always hearing about access to information, more cable stations than ever…. But it’s not about the specificity of information, about notions of history, about how life was lived, or even how it’s lived. It’s about another kind of space. It’s as Baudrillard has said, ‘the space of fascination,’ rather than the space of reading. ‘Fascinating’ in the way that Barthes says that stupidity is fascinating. It’s this sort of incredible moment which sort of rivets us through its constancy, through its unreadability because it’s not made to be read or seen, or really it’s made to be seen but not watched. I think that we can use the fluency of that form [television] and its ability to ingratiate, but perhaps also try to create meanings, too. Not just re-create the spectacle formally, but to take the formalities of the spectacle and put some meaning into it. Not just make a statement about the dispersion of meaning, but making it meaningful” [3]
Kruger uses her skills as a graphic designer to explore the possibilities of what image and text can accomplish, however, she is not interested in dissolving meaning as most modernist tend to gravitate toward, she’s interested in creating meaning though her work. She criticizes the discipline itself by making her work on printed materials, for display in a museum, film, photography, and outside public structures but most importantly by creating meaning.
Barbara Kruger, Untitled (The future belongs to those who can see it), 1997, Silkscreen on vinyl, 85 × 60 in | 215.9 × 152.4 cm, Image Courtesy: Artsy.net
In Summary, modernism influenced Barbara Kruger’s aesthetic in its approach to image and text. Her gender-address through the appropriation of images juxtaposed with confrontational text, created a new language which encourages the active viewer to engage in critical thinking about the context being presented. Furthermore, her work not only challenges the way we consume art but also the media and our current socio-political climate. Kruger’s work has received critical acclaim being exhibited in very important landmarks and institutions making her an artist of our times. Additionally, her interest in creating meaning within her work liberates and opens discourse on ideological and philosophical issues which have stifled our society throughout the years.
References
1. “Barbara Kruger.” The Board. https://www.thebroad.org/art/barbara-kruger
2. Kamimura, Masako. “Barbara Kruger: Art of Representation.” Woman’s Art Journal, vol. 8, no. 1, 1987, pp. 40–43. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/1358339. Accessed 27 Aug. 2022
3. Mitchell, W. J. T., and Barbara Kruger. “An Interview with Barbara Kruger.” Critical Inquiry, vol. 17, no. 2, 1991, pp. 434–48. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1343844. Accessed 29 Aug. 2022.
4. “The Kruger Controversy: Court Throws out Lawsuit against Barbara Kruger, Clarifies Copyright Law.” Art on Paper, vol. 7, no. 2, 2002, pp. 26–26. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/24559614. Accessed 9 Sep. 2022.
5. Selvin, Claire. “Barbara Kruger’s Strange, Alluring Text-Based Artworks: How the Artist Critiqued Advertisement and Rose to Fame.” ARTNews, August 6, 2020. https://www.artnews.com/feature/barbara-kruger-art-exhibitions-1202696145/
6. Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt. “Interview. Barbara Kruger.” YouTube. Dec. 23, 2010 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DP7hbDkJql8
7. Nochlin, Linda. “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artist?” ARTNews. January 1971.
8. Greenberg, Clement. Modernist Painting. Forum Lectures (Washington, D. C.: Voice of America), 1960. Arts Yearbook 4, 1961 (unrevised).