by Elizabeth Rodarte
Staff Writer
Invisible hands reach out of Barbara Kruger’s artwork and invite viewers on a journey where an open mind is the passport.
At the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) in Los Angeles, the “Barbara Kruger” exhibit presents more than 70 works from 1978 to present.
“The first comprehensive overview of Barbara Kruger’s multi-faceted career, this 20-year retrospective exhibition ‘re-pictures’ the artist’s work through the pictures and words that have formed an ongoing lexicon, which she continues to articulate through a variety of media and sites,” curator Ann Goldstein said of the exhibit.
Kruger’s work consists of various photographic prints on paper and vinyl, lenticular and etched-metal images, audio and video work, installations and sculpture.
Heidi Hernandez, a student from California State University, Northridge, stared at the artwork and said, “This is amazing. I don’t really spend much time visiting art exhibitions, but this one has really blown me away.”
As visitors walk through the exhibition, they view messages that seem to reach out and shout at them.
An entire wall is covered with two black-and-white photographs of a young boy yelling and a sign painted over that reads, “All violence is the illustration of a pathetic stereotype.” As visitors are viewing the wall, they are also walking over a floor covered with explicit words in several colors.
“I was overwhelmed by all the black, white and red colors and the huge writing that was written over the pictures,” said Raquel Arevalo, a student from California State University, Long Beach.
Since 1980, the majority of Kruger’s work has been visualized in black, white and red photos and text montages. The phrases are typeset in the Futura Bold Italic font.
“These works raise complex and interrelated issues of power, history, identity, sexuality, economics and social relations as they question received ideas about ideals and values,” said Goldstein.
Kruger’s work focuses on pictures because she feels they have the ability to determine who we are and who we are not.
“If you are so successful, why do you feel like a fake?” is written over a horizontal shaped mirror. Half of the mirror is covered with red and on the other half the word “fake” is written. Kruger’s intention for the viewer staring into the mirror is for the person to reflect on his or her own life.
The strength of the written word is seen by Kruger’s use of striking phrases. Examples include: Your body is a battleground” and “I shop, therefore I am.”
Kruger was born in 1945 in Newark, N.J. She attended Syracuse University and Parsons School of Design for a short period, and later dropped out to study commercial art and get a design job in New York.
In the late ’60s and early ’70s Kruger worked as a graphic designer, art director and picture editor in the art departments at Mademoiselle and House and Garden and freelanced at other Condé Nast publications. Kruger’s major influence on her work has been her experience as a graphic designer.
MOCA is currently the primary site of Kruger’s work. Her work will also be on billboards placed throughout Los Angeles.
Kruger’s work has appeared throughout the United States, Japan and Europe.
The Whitney Museum of American Art in New York is the next destination of Kruger’s exhibit.
Tomorrow, Kruger will join Neal Gabler – cultural historian and contributor to the Los Angeles Times opinion section – for a discussion on public and private lives, culture and power at 2 p.m. The discussion will take place at the Hotel Inter-Continental in the Bunker Hill Ballroom in Los Angeles. For more information, call (213) 621-1767.
The exhibition runs through Feb. 13. Admission is $10; $5 for students with valid identification and MOCA members. Reservations can be made at the box office, at (213) 626-6828.
