Barbara Kruger

Barbara Kruger:

Society, Sex, and Slogans

"I want people to be drawn into the space of the work. And a lot of people are like

me in that they have relatively short attention spans. So I shoot for the window of opportunity."

--Barbara Kruger

After reading Edward Said's essay "Opponents, Audiences, Constituencies, and Community" I knew that the work of Barbara Kruger would be very exciting to explore. Born in 1945, Kruger is an artist who became extremely popular in the 1980's for her collaged artwork. Her artwork creates questions and entices responses form viewers. The collages are able to create a playful but meaningful dialogue on important political and social issues. Responding critically to the world around her through social, sexual, and political artwork, Kruger bold style creates a direct interaction with the viewer, which in turn enables the viewer to respond objectively to the ideas Kruger has presented.

After studying at Syracuse University and with Diane Arbus at Parsons School of Design, Kruger worked as a graphic designer and later got work as a head designer for Mademoiselle Magazine. Keeping with a very graphic style, Kruger's work looks like it could come straight out of a magazine. This work can be very appealing to a wide audience because of its straightforward graphic nature. With work reminiscent of advertisements and billboards, Kruger used photographic images with a brief declarative statement in large type. At the height of her career, it was not uncommon for her to display her work as actually billboards and advertisements in urban areas.

Interestingly, in Edward Said's essay "Opponents, Audiences, Constituencies, and Community" he discusses the idea of " "interference". Where "interference" refers to a generalization of information when a generalization seems impossible to make. In a world where people often rely on the government controlled media to gain knowledge, Kruger uses this to her advantage and plays on this idea. One of her most famous works Untitled (Your body is a battleground) , made in 1989 is a perfect example of twisting the ideas behind mass media, sex, and outsider ideas. This silkscreen which measures 9.3'x9.3' uses a portrait of what society would deem a beautiful woman. This black and white silkscreen is divided directly down the center, with the right half of the image becoming a negative of the woman's face. Kruger use of the word "Your" creates a direct connection with the viewer, along with the woman who is staring directly at you. Like most of Krugers work, the sentence "Your body is a battleground" is cut into three lines and placed at the top, center, and bottom of the image. Large red rectangles create a backing for the sentence. This sentence would not be nearly as powerful if it were displayed in a more indirect way. Because Kruger's sentence is so concise, it is able to make a bigger, more powerful impact.

Something interesting to note in "Your body is a battleground" is the use of "your" and not "our". Kruger is well known for using the terms "we" and "you" in relation to women and men. Where "we" is women and "you" is men. The change to "your" instead of "our" in this particular painting is important to note because of the purpose of the painting. This image was originally used in a pro-choice march in April of 1989. Kruger perhaps made her phrase one that impacted women with the ability to connect to women with different political and social responses. You must protect and educate yourself is what Kruger is shouting to all women. You must acknowledge us, you must react to us, and you must respond to us is what Kruger is shouting to society at large.

In Said's article, he emphasizes the need to "open the culture to experiences of the Other which have remained Ð''outside' (and have been repressed or framed in a context of confrontational hostility) the norms manufactured by Ð''insiders'." "Your body is a battleground" is a perfect example of this idea. Although women's health and pro-choice ideals are not considered completely "outsider", they have been, in the 1980's even more than now, shunned upon by parts of society where stereotypical gender rolls are still implemented. With this thought process, the idea of birth control and women's sexual education is something looked down upon. Kruger is able to create

...