Barbara Kruger
(Born 1945)
Barbara Kruger was born in Newark, New Jersey in 1945. She graduated from Parson’s School of Design in New York City in 1966 and began developing her distinguished, well-known style in the late 1970s. Kruger's early career in graphic design and advertising, as well as her love of poetry, form the basis of her photograph and text-based works which take advantage of traditional iconography and slogans to make incisive commentary against pervading social stereotypes and consumerist culture. Through her work, Kruger explores these themes and the powerful role of mass-media in the perpetuation and establishment of social norms, particularly in regard to women and their place in society. When overlapped in Kruger’s works, previously unrelated images and slogans take on new dimension and meaning. They transmit a surprisingly different tone than the one propagated in mainstream media and question issues of consumerism, feminism, desire and individuality. Kruger’s intense compositions, usually in a limited palette of black, white and red, take on multiple mediums including posters, electronic signboards, billboards and unframed photographs.
Barbara Kruger has exhibited extensively throughout the United States and Europe. Recent solo exhibitions of her work have been held in institutions such as the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. in 2016, Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich in 2011, the Moderna Museet in Stockholm in 2008, the Museum of Contemporary Art in San Diego, California in 2005, and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York in 2000. She has also participated in exhibitions in major institutions such as the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Metropolitan Muesum of Art in New York, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, California. Kruger has participated in several Whitney Biennials, and her work has been featured in multiple publications. Barbara Kruger lives in New York and Los Angeles.
