Barbara Kruger Research Post

Barbara Kruger

Context
Barbara Kruger was born in Newark, New Jersey, in 1945. Working for Mademoiselle Magazine, she was quickly promoted to head designer. Later, she worked as a graphic designer, art director, and picture editor in the art departments at House and Garden, Aperture, and other publications. 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. 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. 

Photography

This image from Barbara Kruger shows a puppet in the form of a man holding a sign with lines that we would perceive as hypnotising. Having the line "Repeat after me" tells us that we are being hypnotised into thinking certain things and taking orders from people that know their ideas are wrong but they still find a way to transfer them across to the people. The fact that it is in the form of a man shows that the men have all the power and they are giving orders to the women. This can also show that we are being given orders by puppets who are also being hypnotised. Barbara Kruger's feminism can be displayed in this image because she is showing how men are in charge and they have ultimate power.

This image from Barbara Kruger shows someone placing a needle in a haystack, the needle is surrounded by negative and positive words that we experience in every day life. The fact that the needle is being placed in the haystack surrounded by these words shows us that the words are forever going to be lost in the haystack with the needle. You will never be able to find the needle in the haystack. The slogan 'the meaning of life is that it stops' links to the picture because the needle can represent life and the words represent what we go through in life, the fact it is being placed in a haystack where it will never be found again shows that life is stopping. 

This image shows a woman's face, on one side it it normal and unedited but on the other side it looks like we are looking at an x-ray. The fact that the saying "Your body is a battleground" is written across the picture shows that we do things to our body such as getting plastic surgery etc that is changing our body. It can also show that women go through pain to look they way they want to. I think Barbara Kruger is trying to show that we shouldn't go through all this pain to look a certain way we should just embrace the way we look. I think she has used a picture of an x-ray next to a normal woman to show that when women change the way they look it isn't always for the better.