I'm Just Saying She's an Artist Who Works With Pictures and Words

"I work with pictures and words because they have the ability to 

determine who we are and who we aren’t."
-Barbara Kruger

        Barbara Kruger is one of the most fascinating artists of the 20th century. Whoever said a picture is worth a thousand words has definitely not met her. She is a conceptual artist and she is bold in her artwork. Barbara Kruger uses black and white pictures and words to get her point across. She focuses on many of the "isms" in her artwork: feminism, consumerism, racism, sexism, capitalism, and more. She uses many popular pictures that we've seen and adds a little 'extra'. They come from billboards, magazines, photographs, etc. She usually uses white letters with a red text box, which makes it stand out, a way that draws the viewers attention. She correlates the pictures and text in a manner in which one without the other would not get her message across, and together they impact you greatly. She also makes them billboard-sized, so you can't miss it if you're passing by one of her art pieces. The artwork she makes forces the viewer to question our roles in everyday society.

Society brainwashes people everyday through ads, magazines, the television, radio, and any other medium the media could get their hands on. Growing up we are influenced by everyone around us. Most of the time we see how other people act and we end up mimicking them. We are taught what is "acceptable" and what is not, what a "good" person is and what he is not. We are taught to obsess over designer brands and we are willing to pay for five-thousand dollars for a handbag that is merely worth that price, or even half. The artwork on the left has what seems to be a mime holding a hypnotic paper that reads "Repeat after me". We all know mimes to be people who like to mimick others, and when you look at the piece he is holding its very hypnotic. He is trying to hypnotize you so you could follow his orders, like many people in society. She is commenting on how people are hypnotized by society's standards, way of being, and basically everything. People are being controlled to be a certain way to please whomever is doing the hypnotizing (in this case society). 

Celebrities are constantly held on a pedastal. Everyone is infatuated with them: their lifestyle, body, image, money, etc. Most importantly, however, is how they look. They seem to have the perfect skin, face, body -everything about them is just so perfect. Are they really though? They're normal human beings just like we are, but many people do not see that. Magazines showing celebrities on the cover show them as "perfect", not the way they really are. A recent picture of Kim Kardashian as shown to the left, was photo-shopped. Her skin color was change to make it look lighter and more even, her legs were slimmed down and so was her stomache. As you can see, the people in the magazines that people idolize aren't real, at least the way we think they seem. Barbara Kruger comments on this ideal by making the picture on the right, which states "Your body is a battleground". Women are constantly changing themselves to fit into society's standards, and the main thing women trying to achieve is being "skinny". They starve themselves trying to look like celebrities, and women, especially, try to change everything about themselves to be happy with what society believes is beautiful. So "Your body is a battleground" exactly means this, women are in constant fights with themselves, and their body to try and look "beautiful" and "skinny".

     Abortion is one of the touchiest topics one can discuss, and course, Barbara Kruger touches on it. Her piece says "77% of anti-abortion leaders are men. 100% of them will never get pregnant". There are men in the background illustrating the 100% of men that won't get pregnant. She says this because, as we all know men are not the ones having children, women are. The 77% of men that are against abortion, should not comment on anything because they will never put into that scenario where they might make a decision whether to or not to have an abortion. She is pro-choice, and she is sending that message across in this piece. She believes that men should let the women do the decision making because its not them in that position. Also, it is very interesting that these men are dressed up in business suits, they are possibly Congressmen, and are the ones opposing making abortion legal.   

Her art piece on the right is called "We will no longer be seen and not heard" and was made in New York City in 1985. She uses the people in the picture to send a message to everyone are she uses "we" to signify many, and saying that they will be seen and heard is telling people that everyone will have to see and hear them, or in other words, pay attention to them. She uses her artwork to say this because she wants people to know that she will be seen and heard by thousands of people, even millions, and that they will listen to her. Barbara Kruger continues to make artwork (on her computer) that comments on things society does that impact peoples' lives daily. She does this to make people aware about what society is doing to us, and uses her artwork to do so. The boldness and poignancy of the words she puts on the pictures makes us see waht she does, and tries to help us steer away from what is being done to us. 

You can read more about her on her fan website.

Bibliography

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/Barbara-Krugers-Artwork-Speaks-Truth-to-Power-160281585.html
http://www.eng.fju.edu.tw/Literary_Criticism/feminism/kruger/kruger.htm
http://www.arthistoryarchive.com/arthistory/feminist/Barbara-Kruger.html