American conceptual/pop artist Barbara Kruger is internationally renowned for her signature black, white and red poster-style works of art that convey in-your-face messages on women's rights and issues of power. Coming out of the magazine publishing industry, Kruger knows precisely how to capture the viewer's attention with her bold and witty photomurals displayed on billboards, bus stops and public transportation as well as in major museums and galleries wordwide. She has edited books on cultural theory, including Remaking History for the Dia Foundation, and has published articles in the New York Times, Artforum, and other periodicals. Monographs on her work include Love for Sale, We Won't Play Nature to Your Culture and others. She is represented in New York by Mary Boone Gallery. A major exhibition of her work will be presented at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles in fall 1999, and at the Whitney Museum in New York in 2000.
Research Kruger's work to find an example from the 1970s or 1980s to compare with a more recent work. How has Kruger's work changed with the developments in contemporary visual arts? Describe a recent work that moves away from the 'poster' type work of her early career.
Find 2-3 works by Kruger to add to your blog.
How does the audience experience a more spatial, installation art work compared with a poster?
What elements does Kruger use in her work to create a strong impact?
Comment on the development of her work over the last 30 years.
Comment on the examples that you find on other students blogs.
hi Amy^^
ReplyDeletei think for Barbara's works all are black , white and red. It's looks so clear. People is easy to understand what she is conveying. Compare with recent poster. I think recent work is more sample than the past, and more colorful. Nowadays, designers like to use images to convey the massage rather than use words.
Hey Amy
ReplyDeleteBarbaras work is pretty impressive in that it hasnt changed dramatically from her token distinctive black white and red style. I think thats an impressive feat to accomplish, finding something perfect for your style and sticking with it over a span of 30 years. Even in her new isntallations and sculpture work she still maintains her distinctive red black and white style, and for that, I salute her
Hey Amy!
ReplyDeleteKruger work is pretty powerful. I really love her stuff, but your choice is quite interest. It makes me angry, it reminds me of how little I am in society. It’s annoying because it reminds me of what I can’t do and that at the end of the day someone bigger and better than me will/could hold me down because he or she can, is depressing… but that’s just my opinion.
Lol! :D
1.“Instead of the usual mix of images and graphics, Barbara Kruger's most recent work Twelve is a video installation presented at the Mary Boone Gallery in New York in March 2004. With the exception of the retrospective at the Whitney in 2000, it was the first time Kruger had exhibited in a New York gallery for six years. The work is located in a room and consists of the images of a video projected simultaneously on all four walls. There are twelve different stories, twelve dialogues set in a nondescript diner or private home. Each scene runs from six seconds to two minutes, and the whole thing lasts for about a quarter of an hour. It is performed by thirty-nine professional actors. The video is projected in a loop, so anyone entering the gallery is immediately caught up in the scene, without having to wait for it to start.”
ReplyDeleteFederica Vannucchi
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2. This is my favourite quote that I found in a Design Quarterly magazine: “Design is ever changing; constantly evolving to meet the needs of those who inhabit the spaces it creates.” I like this quote because it puts it simply: art has changed to meet the needs of the modern culture, progression is estential and I think that as artists we need to also move with the times, but not forget the past. I also like this one from the same magazine: “Public space performs better when there is a central or focal space.” This I feel is what Kruger has done here. She wants us to engage with her work.
I think with an installation it makes art feel more real because we all get to experience it at the same time, with a poster maybe it could be seen as more standoffish.
3. Kruger uses bold lettering and has consistently used black and white imagery throughout her years as an artist, encorporating red in places also; “a characteristic sign, and one which has not changed substantially over the last twenty years”. I think the use of red letter plates is quite striking coupled with bold black font. Her imagery is also very powerful, as she uses images, which stand up for themselves I feel, yet when encorporated with text they seem much more powerful almost like a united front, which I think works well.
Comment on the development of her work over the last 30 years:
“Kruger’s earliest artworks date to 1969. Large woven wall hangings of yarn, beads, sequins, feathers, and ribbons, they exemplify the feminist recuperation of craft during this period.”
“She took up photography in 1977, producing a series of black-and-white details of architectural exteriors paired with her own textual ruminations on the lives of those living inside.”
“By 1979 Barbara Kruger stopped taking photographs and began to employ found images in her art, mostly from mid-century American print-media sources, with words collaged directly over them.”
“During the early 1980s Barbara Kruger perfected a signature agitprop style, using cropped, large-scale, black-and-white photographic images juxtaposed with raucous, pithy, and often ironic aphorisms, printed in Futura Bold typeface against black, white, or deep red text bars.”
“In recent years Barbara Kruger has extended her aesthetic project, creating public installations of her work in galleries, museums, municipal buildings, train stations, and parks, as well as on buses and billboards around the world.”
http://www.arthistoryarchive.com/arthistory/feminist/Barbara-Kruger.html
I think her work has progressed quite a lot over the years, however I really liked the black and white works she has done from 1980-2000. I felt those were the most successful. I've never seen anyone use imagery and text quite like her before and I think its great. I love literature also and am always finding quirky notions that make you think either from books or artists or just from everyday life, I supose that is why I like her work so much.
Kruger has very frank, bold, and “very to the point” posters and installations that make a impact with any audience that view her work. I have found that she has different opinions with how the world is and she expresses and lets out all her opinions through her work.. In my opinion Kruger has very strong views on feminist issues, politics, and government issues.
ReplyDeleteHey Amy,
ReplyDeleteKruger uses a limited colour pellet of white, black and red. Krugar uses red to create a strong impact and also uses word's like 'YOU' and 'US' so that the reader is included in the works, I think this makes it easier to understand aswell. I found it interesting how she still uses words to get her point across because so many people these days like to use pictures to do so.