I chose Barbara Kruger for this research project because her style is completely opposite to mine. My final project's work is very raw and personal, without adding any additional meaning to the photos. It is intended for myself and my family as the audience. On the other hand, Barbara Kruger's artworks are highly impactful and dramatic. She uses bold red and white text on famous or highly recognizable black-and-white images to express her satire and warnings about consumerism, mass culture, gender, and race.
My style has always been subtle, gentle, and quiet. Even though my senior project is aimed at a broader audience, I never considered using contrasting colors, extensive repetition, or large-scale installations to grab attention or provoke public self-awareness. Seeing Kruger's bold and loud style makes me reflect on my own limitations.
I admire Barbara Kruger's works because her images and texts have a strong visual impact conveying profound messages with simplicity, and leveraging associations for meaning. She effectively conveys profound and extensive messages using simple imagery and straightforward language. For example, her use of Supreme's red and white color scheme alongside the text "your gaze hits the side of my face" immediately brings to mind the concept of the male gaze.
Barbara Kruger is cool about "the death of the author". She strongly invites audience to pay attention to her content, and her content is straightforward that her audience's interpretation always aligns with her intended message. It is fantastic to connect her style with Barthes' understanding that "the text is a site of pleasure and enjoyment, inviting readers to actively engage with it". Kruger's texts engage and provoke the audience to challenging established meanings and ideologies which is a playful enjoyment. But at the same time, Kruger's clarity and dominance in conveying her message leave little room for alternative interpretations which allows little freedom of the audience. They mean the same but not the same.
Moreover, Kruger must agree with Barthes' notion that "the text is a space of resistance, challenging established meanings and ideologies". She skillfully leverages associations between certain elements and established meanings to guide viewers' interpretation of her fragmented content consistently. For example,
when we encounter the text "not stupid enough" accompanying Marilyn Monroe's image, our common association is with the societal image of femininity and sensuality. Kruger seizes upon this association to redirect our attention to the objectification of women within society, rather than focusing solely on Marilyn Monroe herself. By utilizing established associations, Kruger reinforces her intended message and prompts viewers to critically examine prevailing ideologies.
In summary, Kruger's approach aligns with Barthes' ideas on the pleasure of engagement with text and the potential for challenging established meanings. Through her strategic use of associations and provocative imagery, Kruger stimulates viewers to contemplate and question societal norms, ultimately encouraging a deeper understanding of prevalent ideologies.
I actually feel like the extreme clarity of the message is what creates a lot of room for interpretation! To me, art most often has a uniform perception by the audience when it is slightly abstract and/or rather aesthetical. Kruger's art is utilizing a fairly popular aesthetic, but one that is lacking abstraction. While the central message is clear, there is lots to debate in the details due to their globality; for example, is the image of Marylin Monroe a commentary on objectification of all women, or confined to specific cultures/communities? While Monroe is a worldwide-known figure, people's perception of her varies a lot place to place, like of many globally-recognizable things, imo.
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