BARBARA KRUGER
The few white words on red background strips within each composition transform a familiar aphorism into a pseudo ad slogan, often expressed interrogatively. For example, “No one is beyond the law” becomes “Who is beyond the law?” Similarly, “Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time” becomes “Who does the crime? Who does the time?” By making these slight but crucial changes, Kruger turns the phrase against its own original meaning, questioning the authority that invented it. It is a textbook example of the deconstruction of meaning expounded by many recent linguistic theorists, and it achieves a powerfully accusatory but open-ended social critique that ultimately implicates us all.
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Unfortunately, because we are so familiar with her style, we tend to dismiss some of Kruger’s more direct pieces as obvious one-liners. Untitled (Who is born to lose?) features a huge bent nail that says nothing much beyond its literal meaning. Of the three large silk screens in the room adjacent to the “who” pictures, two also fail to rise above mere textual illustration.
I have never before seen Kruger utilize the floor in her work; so this “piece” came as a welcome surprise. The text is so large that you can’t read it all from one position. You must walk back and forth a bit. It says, “All that seemed beneath you is speaking to you now. All that seemed deaf hears you. All that seemed dumb knows what’s on your mind. All that seemed blind is following in your footsteps.” These fortune-cookie words strike a strange visceral chord, for they are simultaneously melodramatic and sad, portentous and baffling. They seem to be a warning, but against whom or what is unclear. Perhaps it is against our own repetitious mistakes. Here again, ambiguity invites prolonged speculation.
