Tomorrow Skarstedt London will be opening its doors to Barbara Kruger: Early Works, a comprehensive survey of the iconic American artist in the early stages of her career. A key activist in the 80s, a champion of feminism, social commentator and political agitator, the exhibition focuses on Kruger’s large-scale black and white photographs in red enamel frames that explore the cultural construction of power, identity and sexuality through their provocative captions, overlaid in bold Futura type. Drawing on her background in graphic design, Kruger adopts the same visual rhetoric as mass media, in order to challenge the very language and power structures of consumerist culture.
“These were objects,” the artist affirms, ”I wasn’t going to stick them on the walls with pushpins. I wanted them to enter the marketplace because I began to understand that outside the market there is nothing… That’s what the frames were about: how to commodify them. It was the most effective packaging device. Signed, sealed, delivered.” In an age where hierarchies of culture have been blurred through online and social media, Kruger’s work has never been more relevant.
Barbara Kruger: Early Works is showing at Skarstedt London from 10th February to 11th April