Since the 1970s Barbara Kruger has developed an artistic practice that powerfully combines text with both still and moving images. Her works consistently interrogate mechanisms of power as well as the cultural systems of representation that determine our daily lives and relationships. By laying bare interplay between the manipulation and imitation of human desires that defines the contemporary mediascape, the artist develops a critical picture of society. Nonetheless, Kruger never instructs the viewer on what position to take; rather she reveals the structuring power of language and image.
Barbara Kruger (*1945, Newark, NJ) lives and works in Los Angeles and New York. Solo shows include The Art Institute of Chicago (2021), AMOREPACIFIC Museum of Art, Seoul (2019), National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC (2016), High Line Art, New York (2016), Modern Art Oxford (2014), Kunsthaus Bregenz (2013), Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich (2011), Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt (2010), Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow (2005), Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2000), Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (1999), Serpentine Gallery, London (1994), Musée d'art contemporain, Montreal (1985) and Kunsthalle Basel (1984). Group shows include those at Hamburger Bahnhof (2018), V-A-C Foundation, Palazzo delle Zattere, Venice (2017), Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2014), Biennale of Sydney (2014), Museum Ludwig, Cologne (2013), Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (2010), Museum of Modern Art, New York (2007, 2009, 2010), Palazzo Grassi, Venice (2006), Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL (2004), Tate Liverpool (2002), Centre Pompidou, Paris (1988) and Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (1987). The current major solo exhibition will travel to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and will also have a station at the Museum of Modern Art, New York.