Monday, February 10, 2014

WORDS in Art?


Barbara Kruger's towering black-and-white text now dominates the lobby of the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles.
       I've been puzzling what to make of Barbara Kruger's use of language in her art for a good number of years.

       That "YOU" you're looking at (click on image to enlarge it) says, "You are here to get cultured.  To get smarter, richer, younger, angrier, funnier, skinnier, hipper, hotter, wiser, weirder, cuter, and kinder."

       It made me chuckle and smile at some of those words.  And the culture you'll gain at a museum consists of that wide a range of possibilities?  Includes things that are personally desirable to me, and feelings and wishes and curiosity and emotions I've had or suppressed, not just what's way outside my body and life?

       Is she saying the whole world, including ME, is in art, and art can even include huge words to help remind me of that!? 

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