Barbara Kruger

"I think I developed language skills to deal with threat. It's the girl thing to do-you know, instead of pulling out a gun."
– Barbara Kruger. 

Barbara Kruger is an American conceptual/pop artist born in Newark, New Jersey, in 1945. She worked as a graphic designer, art director, and picture editor in the art departments at House and Garden, Aperture, and other publications. This background in design is evident in the work for which she is now internationally renowned. She layers found photographs from existing sources with pithy and aggressive text that involves the viewer in the struggle for power and control that her captions speak to. 

Kruger is another artist that I feel appeals to me as she is very out spoken and open minded and this shows within her work. She is basically saying what people are thinking but to afraid to say, but by also putting a little twist to it. 

One of my favourite pieces of work is ‘Your body is a battleground’. The reason I like this piece of artwork so much is because it is so true. Some women feel insecure about their bodies and are always constantly trying to change how they look. What this image is doing, is speaking out aloud. Much of her text questions the viewer about feminism, classicism, consumerism, and individual autonomy and desire, although her black-and-white images are culled from the mainstream magazines that sell the very ideas she is disputing.

“Kruger's practice reflects the discovery, evident throughout contemporary art, of the formative power of images, the capacity of signs to affect deep structures of belief. Her art is concerned with positioning of the social body, with the ways in which out thoughts, attitudes and desires are determined by society's dictates.” (Kruger, B 1990)

References:

Kruger, B. (1990) Love for sale: the words and pictures of Barbara Kruger

Available at: http://www.barbarakruger.com/index.php (Accessed: 19th May 2011)

Available at: http://www.arthistoryarchive.com/arthistory/feminist/Barbara-Kruger.html (Accessed: 19th May 2011)