We Will Not Become What We Mean to You
<p>Barbara Kruger’s photo- and text-based images disrupt representations of power generated by commercial media, particularly those that affect women. Informed by her earlier profession as a graphic designer, her work typically combines images and iconography appropriated from 1940s and 1950s American film, television, and advertising with blunt slogans rife with insinuation. Kruger explained, “I’m interested in how identities are constructed, how stereotypes are formed, how narratives sort of congeal and become history.” Here the artist removed the identifying features of the figure and used the pronouns we and you to implicate the viewer, regardless of gender, in the objectification of this anonymous woman.</p>
Catalogue
- Year
- 1983
- Medium
- Gelatin silver print
- Dimensions
- 184 × 121 × 5 cm (72 1/2 × 48 × 2 in.)
- Collection
- Art Institute of Chicago
- Artist
- Barbara Kruger
Artist
Painting
Barbara Kruger was born in 1945 in Newark, New Jersey and studied at Syracuse University and Parsons School of Design, New York. In 1966, she began…
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More by Barbara Kruger
Untitled (No Comment)
2020 · Three-channel video installation, color, with sound; 9 min. 25 sec.
Untitled from Art Against Immigration Ban Letter Portfolio
2017 · One from a portfolio of nine digital prints
Plate (folio 23) from My Pretty Pony
1988 · Lithograph from an illustrated book with nine screenprints (one with lithograph), eight lithographs, and stainless steel cover with digital clock
Plate (folio 20) from My Pretty Pony
1988 · Lithograph from an illustrated book with nine screenprints (one with lithograph), eight lithographs, and stainless steel cover with digital clock
Double page plate (front endpaper and folio 1) from My Pretty Pony
1988 · Screenprint from an illustrated book with nine screenprints (one with lithograph), eight lithographs, and stainless steel cover with digital clock
Have Me Feed Me Hug Me Love Me Need Me
1988 · Lenticular photograph
Record
Verified by WattsOS- Artist
- Barbara Kruger
- Year
- 1983
- Medium
- Gelatin silver print
- Dimensions
- 184 × 121 × 5 cm (72 1/2 × 48 × 2 in.)
- Watts ID
- WW-1983-041191
Source
- Collection
- Art Institute of Chicago
- Source
- aic
- Reference
- View at source
- Status
- verified