barbara kruger
desire exists where pleasure is absent
september 1 to november 5, 2006
The kestnergesellschaft is presenting a new wall installation that was specially conceived for its spaces, as well as the most recent video work Twelve, by Barbara Kruger, born in 1945. The American artist, who was awarded an honorary lion at the Venice Biennale in 2005 for her life’s work, advanced with her large-scale text collages in both public and museum spaces to recognition as one of the most important representatives of a conceptually oriented contemporary art.
Images and texts from the mass media, from advertising and from the world of consumption constitute the material out of which Barbara Kruger develops her messages. With formal succinctness and by means of an unmistakable aesthetic, she is able again and again to formulate apposite and irritating slogans, such as “I shop therefore I am” or “Your Body is a Battleground,” which thematize not only the relationship between the sexes but also various social and political issues. The vinyl wall installation in the kestnergesellschaft focuses on the theme of consumption. In their customary provocative manner, the messages that are presented here include “Buy me, I’ll change your life,” “Money talks” or “Money can buy you love.”
Through her combination of image and text, as well as through her strategic utilization of stereotypes and clichés, Kruger is especially fond of raising questions concerning identity and the cultural representation of power. The fact that criticism awakens her interest not only in the context of the media and patterns of consumption, but also in terms of interpersonal relationships, is demonstrated by the video installation Twelve, which is concerned with these very themes. Taking place upon four screens set up opposite each other are twelve conversations in various social constellations and everyday situations in which the structures of power, society, culture, family and interpersonal relationships are mirrored or, as Barbara Kruger puts it: “How we are to one another.” Twelve conversations, one dialogue partner per screen (from politicians by way of an art critic on through to students) and, in each case, a single lower line moving in the manner of tickertape news and giving expression to the unspoken aspect, the subtext of the interactions – all these elements combine to communicate in brief episodes the subtleties of everyday communication: what we say and how we say it.