Texts

Website: The couch sessions and Barbara Kruger - The art history archive -Feminist art

Kruger’s use of text and typography over a black and white background to convey simple messages about feminism and consumerism are still striking and poignant over 30 years later. But if her previous work was a subtle jab, her new installation at The Temporary Stedelijk in Amsterdam seems to scream at you and punch you in the face.

Using the gallery’s largest room as her canvas, Kruger makes a bold point of how we treat each other. Amazing. The exhibition runs until JanuaryKruger’s earliest artworks date to 1969. Large woven wall hangings of yarn, beads, sequins, feathers, and ribbons, they exemplify the feminist recuperation of craft during this period. Despite her inclusion in the Whitney Biennial in 1973 and solo exhibitions at Artists Space and Fischbach Gallery, both in New York, the following two years, she was dissatisfied with her output and its detachment from her growing social and political concerns. In the fall of 1976, Kruger abandoned art making and moved to Berkeley, California, where she taught at the University of California for four years and steeped herself in the writings of Walter Benjamin and Roland Barthes.

She took up photography in 1977, producing a series of black-and-white details of architectural exteriors paired with her own textual ruminations on the lives of those living inside. Published as an artist’s book, Picture/Readings (1979) foreshadows the aesthetic vocabulary Kruger developed in her mature work.

By 1979 Barbara Kruger stopped taking photographs and began to employ found images in her art, mostly from mid-century American print-media sources, with words collaged directly over them. Her 1980 untitled piece commonly known as "Perfect" portrays the torso of a woman, hands clasped in prayer, evoking the Virgin Mary, the embodiment of submissive femininity; the word “perfect” is emblazoned along the lower edge of the image.

My own words:

I found Barbara Krugar's artwork interesting, because I like that she draws and designs letters on walls. I also like how she added some texts on her work which includes a person on it. 

Title:  You Are Not Yourself

Medium: Photo collage

Size: 182.9 x 121.9 cm

Barbara Kruger Untitled (We don't need another hero) 90" by 117" photographic silkscreen/vinyl 1987

Chromogenic (C-print)

70 х 80 in. (177.8 x 203.2 cm.)

Signed, and numbered, verso

My own words: Barbara Kruger only writes 1 sentence and quotes. It looks like she photoshopped the letters that are on the centre of the image. She also cut out letters from news papers or magazines and collaged them onto paper, wood, glass or any hard surface. 

Poster

Website: Wikipedia

We Can Do It!" is an American wartime propaganda poster produced by J. Howard Miller in 1943 for Westinghouse Electric as an inspirational image to boost worker morale. The poster is generally thought to be based on a black-and-white wire servicephotograph taken of a Michigan factory worker named Geraldine Hoff. The poster was seen very little during World War II. It was rediscovered in the early 1980s and widely reproduced in many forms, often called "We Can Do It!" but also called "Rosie the Riveter" after the iconic figure of a strong female war production worker. The "We Can Do It!" image was used to promote feminism and other political issues beginning in the 1980s.^[1] The image made the cover of the Smithsonian magazine in 1994 and was fashioned into a US first-class mail stamp in 1999. It was incorporated in 2008 into campaign materials for several American politicians, and was reworked by an artist in 2010 to celebrate the first woman becoming prime minister of Australia. The poster is one of the ten most-requested images at theNational Archives and Records Administration.^[1]

Website: Wikipedia

Keep Calm and Carry On is a motivational poster produced by the British government in 1939, several months before the beginning of the Second World War, intended to raise the morale of the British public in the aftermath of widely predicted mass air attacks on major cities. It had only limited distribution with no public display, and thus was little known. It was rediscovered in 2000, has been re-issued by a number of private companies, and has been used as the decorative theme for a range of products. It was believed there were only two known surviving examples of the poster outside government archives until a collection of 20 originals was brought in to the Antiques Roadshow in 2012 by the daughter of an ex-Royal Observer Corps member

Design and production[edit]

The poster was initially produced by the Ministry of Information,at the beginning of the Second World War. It was intended to be distributed in order to strengthen morale in the event of a wartime disaster, such as mass bombing of major cities using high explosives and poison gas, which was widely expected within hours of an outbreak of war. Over 2,500,000 copies were printed, although the poster was distributed only in limited numbers, and never saw public display. Bristol photographer Reece Winstone's book of wartime photographs of the city shows the poster in large form on a billboard.

My own words:
The poster was used for World war which is on Anzac day. It said keep calm and carry on which it uses for the public to stay safe during the world war. About a million copies of this poster was printed to show every public what to do when its Anzac day and when the world war begins.