designer, critic, editor, and curator, combined with
her feminist and other social engagements, led
critic David Deitcher to describe her as a ‘‘cross-
over artist,’’ whose varied artistic and social com-
mitments made it impossible to separate these
usually separate realms of activity and knowledge.
The photographic images which Kruger crops
and overlays with type are selected from as wide a
variety of sources as photography itself encom-
passes, including commercial photographs from
manuals, photo magazines, and archives. Critic
Carol Squiers has described Kruger’s choice of
images as being ‘‘peripheral images, the workhorse
photographs of advertising and magazine illustra-
tion.’’ The directness of address in Kruger’s texts
invites the viewer to reflect on the process of how
images produce meaning. For example, inUntitled
(Buy me I’ll change your life), 1984, andUntitled (I
shop therefore I am), 1987, Kruger employs the
language of consumer culture, and highlights the
blatant ways that advertising functions as an inter-
face between consumer and commodity. Squiers
also underlines how Kruger’s work complicates
the boundaries between commercial, editorial, and
artistic photographs:
She manipulates, modulates, and recodes the address of
obscure and sometimes hilarious images, playing received
wisdom, treacly cliche ́s, and militant critique against
visuals whose original function is often puzzling at best.In the 1990s, Kruger began incorporating video
and sculpture into her work, and has explored the
genre of installation. However, her signature strat-
egy of found images combined with terse text con-
tinues to be Kruger’s primary way of working.
Seventy-one works spanning 1978 to 1999, as well
as documentation of Kruger’s public projects and
billboards, were included in her 1999 retrospective
at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles,
which constitutes her most comprehensive exhibi-
tion and catalogue to date. The startling simplicity
of Kruger’s photo montages is testimony to the
powerful capacity of images to draw on deep and
already circulating social meanings. Combined with
concise and deliberate texts, Kruger’s photo-based
works self-reflect on the powerful role of the image
in popular culture and society.
MonikaKinGagnonSeealso:Agitprop; Arbus, Diane; Artists’ Books;
Burgin, Victor; Conceptual Photography; Deconstruc-
tion; Feminist Photography; History of Photography:
the 1980s; Prince, Richard; Semiotics; Sherman,
Cindy; Structuralism
Biography
Born in Newark, New Jersey, 26 January 1945. Attended
Syracuse University, New York, 1964–1965; Parson’s
School of Design, New York, 1965–1966, studied with
Diane Arbus and Marvin Israel. Designer atMademoi-
sellemagazine, Conde ́ Nast Publications, New York,
1966–1970; and freelance picture editor, including
House and GardenandAperture. Visiting artist at the
University of California at Berkeley (1976), Wright State
University, Ohio, Ohio State University, the Art Insti-
tute of Chicago, and California Institute of the Arts.
Lives in New York City and Los Angeles.Selected Individual Exhibitions
1979 Picture/Readings; Franklin Furnace Archive, New York
1982 No Progress in Pleasure; Hallwalls/CEPA Gallery, Buf-
falo, New York
1983 We Won’t Play Nature to Your Culture: Works by
Barbara Kruger; Institute of Contemporary Arts, Lon-
don (Traveled to Watershed Gallery, Bristol, England;
Le Nouveau Muse ́e, Villeurbanne, France; Kunsthalle,
Basel, Switzerland [in collaboration with Jenny Holzer])
1985 New American Photography: Barbara Kruger, Untitled
Works; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles
1985 Striking Poses: Barbara Kruger; Contemporary Arts
Museum, Houston
1987 Barbara Kruger; Mary Boone Gallery, New York
1988 The Temporary/Contemporary; National Art Gallery,
Wellington, New Zealand
1989 Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, Castello di Rivoli, Turin,
Italy
1989 Galerie Bebert, Rotterdam, The Netherlands
1990 Ko ̈lnischer Kunstverein, Cologne, Germany
1991 Projekt Gadetegn 1991; 117 billboards displayed in met-
ropolitan Copenhagen, Denmark [Public Project]
1996 Museum of Modern Art at Heide, Melbourne, Australia
1999–2000 Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles,
and traveling to the Whitney Museum of American Art,
New YorkSelected Group Exhibitions
1977 Narrative Themes/Audio Works; Los Angeles Institute
of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, traveled to Artists
Space, New York
1978 Artists Books: New Zealand Tour 1978; National Art
Gallery, Wellington, New Zealand, traveled to Govett
Brewster Art Gallery, New Plymouth, New Zealand;
and Auckland City Art Gallery, New Zealand
19815 thVienna International Biennale: Erweiterte Fotogra-
phie; Wiener Secession, Vienna, Austria
1981 19 Emergent Artists: 1981 Exxon Series; Solomon R.
Guggenheim Museum, New York
1982 XL La Biennale di Venezia; Venice, Italy
1982 Documenta 7; Kassel, Germany
1982 Image Scavengers: Photography; Institute of Contem-
porary Art, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia
1983 Whitney Biennial: Contemporary American Art; Whit-
ney Museum of American Art, New York
1984 Difference: On Representation and Sexuality; The New
Museum, New York
1985 Biennial Exhibition: Contemporary American Art;
Whitney Museum of American Art, New YorkKRUGER, BARBARA