In , she enrolled at Syracuse University, where she developed a profound interest in graphic design, as well as poetry and writing. During her time at Parsons, Kruger studied with fellow artists Diane Arbus and Marvin Israel, who introduced her to the magazine and fashion sub-culture of the city. The artworks mainly consisted of large woven walls including yarns, beads, feathers, ribbons and sequins — but despite a few solo exhibitions in New York City, Kruger was dissatisfied with her work which she considered to be too detached from her own growing social concerns.
In , she abandoned her art and moved to Berkeley, California, where she fostered her inspiration for writing, and taught for four years at the University of California. Kruger returned to making art around , at which point she took up architectural photography. In the early s, Kruger stopped photography, and started to develop her illustrious collage method, using techniques she had refined during her years spent working as a graphic designer.
Kruger began to use images derived from popular culture and other print-media sources, directly collaging words and slogans onto them. These early endeavours allowed Kruger to delve deeper into her concerns regarding politics, commentaries on sex and racial stereotypes, consumerism, greed and power. Kruger perfected her signature style throughout the s, juxtaposing black and white glossy photographic images with aphoristic, ironic and sometimes hard-hitting slogans, printed in Futura Bold against deep red, white or black text bars.
Disrupting the seeming naturalness of the white gallery space, Kruger's treatment of the walls, floor, and ceiling underscored the way in which architecture and social spaces have their own way of speaking and representing the world.
Usually her style involves the cropping of a magazine or newspaper image enlarged in black and white. The enlargement of the image is done as crudely as possible to monumental proportions. A message is stenciled on the image, usually in white letters against a background of red. The text and image are unrelated in an effort to create anxiety by the audience that plays on the fears of society.
She represented the United States at the Venice Biennale in Kruger is currently a professor at the University of California at Los Angeles. Barbara Kruger currently splits her time between New York and Los Angeles, where she lives and works. Quotes by Barbara Kruger "I have no complaints, except for the world. It's scary. From the moment of the crash, the pornography of sentiment never let up.
It's because I understand short attention spans. It's just a label for certain kinds of arrangements. Her artwork employs the visual language of branding and advertising to condemn consumer culture and to critique constructs of power, identity, and gender, to promote thought and generate discourse.
Notoriously media-averse and aloof from the celebrity trappings of the art world, Kruger has consistently continued to use her artwork to punch upwards and speak back to power. Earlier this month, as part of the Frieze art fair in Los Angeles, Kruger covered the city with banners, billboards, and stickers which read politically-charged statements and questions. Kruger eventually moved on to working as a picture editor for various publications and, during this time, began writing poetry and attending poetry readings where, incidentally, she was once introduced to the stage by Patti Smith.
She also began making art. Her experiments saw her crocheting erotic objects and creating wall hangings from various materials including yams, feathers, and sequins. All these phases and interests may have seemed disparate, but she was forming a constellation of experience that would, ultimately, inform her artistic methodology and her distinctive visual style.
Kruger's work as a designer provided her with a wealth of transferable skills. As her interest grew, she stopped painting and began exploring how to combine words with architectural photographs. A second study of hospital buildings, involving more declarative phrases such as "Go away" and "Not that" was a further stepping stone to her mature themes of power, sex and personal identity.
Another development at this time was Kruger's decision to abandon original photography in favour of "found images" - see Found Objects 20th Century - typically appropriated from mass media publications like magazines and newspapers. As the s progressed, her choice of words and imagery became more bold and direct. Indeed her mature work addressed issues of feminism, consumerism and personal freedom with titles like " I shop, therefore I am " and " Your body is a Battleground ".
During the s Kruger further refined and enhanced her word art by creating video art and installations that completely enveloped the spectator. This new format was first showcased at her one-person exhibition at the Mary Boone Gallery in New York.
Almost every square-inch of the gallery's interior was covered with confrontational slogans and images. The installation continued her campaign of using evocative slogans to increase popular awareness of self-identity, control and the representation of women: except that her images now moved and spoke.
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