These pictures and quotes from Barbara Kruger embody timeless creative, social and business issues; one of the reason why art is enjoyable and necessary. Art is both timeless and momentary. Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.
Quotes:
“I think that I’m trying to engage issues of power and sexuality and money and life and death and power. Power is the most free-flowing element in society, maybe next to money, but in fact they both motor each other.”-Barbara Kruger.
“I think there are lots of ways to make good work. You can throw big bucks at a project and make what some would call crap, or you can work very modestly with eloquently moving results.”-Barbara Kruger.
“I think what I’m trying to do is create moments of recognition. To try to detonate some kind of feeling or understanding of lived experience.” - Barbara Kruger.
“I try to deal with the complexities of power and social life, but as far as the visual presentation goes I purposely avoid a high degree of difficulty.” - Barbara Kruger.
About Barbara Kruger:
Barbara Kruger (born January 26, 1945) is an American conceptual artist. Much of her work consists of black-and-white photographs overlaid with declarative captions—in white-on-red Futura Bold Oblique or Helvetica Ultra Condensed. The phrases in her works often include use of pronouns such as “you”, “your”, “I”, “we”, and “they”.
Much of Kruger’s work engages the merging of 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. In their trademark white letters against a slash of red background, some of her instantly recognizable slogans read “I shop therefore I am,” and “Your body is a battleground.” Much of her text questions the viewer about feminism, 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.
9 Notes