As they say, opposites attract, and that is my key takeaway from Barbara Kruger’s Thinking of You, I Mean Me, I Mean You exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. LA and Kruger are indeed opposites and clash brilliantly in this exhibition. For there to be rebellion, there must be something to subvert. Kruger is Los Angeles’s match. Was this a match made in hell?
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) has always been a home for the American artist Barbara Kruger. The new BCAM building’s immense freight elevator is open for public use and access. Within the shaft itself, the clear elevator flaunts a three-story tall Kruger piece, Untitled (Shafted), 2010.
Los Angeles being the city known for fame and excess, the piece resonates deeply within the downtown area where just outside hundreds of billboards offering everything from recently legalized marijuana to the Screen Actors Guild Museum reside. In LA, where a half-decent croissant and americano can cost upwards of twenty dollars, Kruger’s work really resonates with travelers and locals alike. LA is famous for its flamboyant and decorative overconsumption of media and products that perfectly counterbalance the raw and primal words of Kruger’s plea for equality and sustainable lifestyles. While LA may try to maintain its color pallet of tans, yellows, and bright pastels, Kruger again rejects this “classic LA” with her iconic red, white, and black color path. Interestingly, green was added sparsely throughout this particular show. LA is unique in the way it popularizes its overconsumption with not just celebrity endorsements but relying on the warm weather and sunshine. Almost all ads are in deep green or pastel yellows and pinks, promising a sustainable product, which is the new wave of consumerism.
I mention this not (just) as a personal critic of the city, but one that is relevant to the ideas Kruger displays in her artwork. I have seen Kruger’s work juxtaposed to cities like Pittsburgh and New York where the gritty undercurrent of the city seems to match the rebellious nature of Kruger’s art. It makes sense that these political statements be made in such bold sans-serif typeface with red or black slashes through the image. I was very appreciative to see this artwork in the scope of LA in which the art reads as even more insubordinate.
Kruger’s work in LACMA extends beyond Shafted, at least for the time being. Through July 17, 2022, the exhibition Thinking of You, I Mean Me, I Mean You will be on display spanning the entire second floor of the BCAM building. The disorienting floor begins as you enter the reception room and are immediately bombarded with audiovisuals. This begins a trend throughout the show that I believe to be a new installment in the Barbara Kruger chronicle. Her classic works make an appearance, for example, Untitled (Your Body is a Battleground), alongside video displays. Some of the films take entire rooms with multiple screens, while others could honestly be confused for digital reproductions of her work.
Beginning with the small-scale video pieces, I think it is important to recognize that the reproduction of her earlier works into digitized reproductions speaks a lot to the art world in this present moment. How do we claim ownership of digital art? Are these works NFTs? Will there be Kruger Koin in the near future? Do we claim online reproductions as violations of artistic merit? How will the adaption of screens change museums when we no longer have to go to Spain to see Guernica? When Picassos can be preserved in a private collection while the world can see the digital format? These issues do not necessarily have clear answers yet and hence proof of just how contemporary Kruger’s works are.
Beyond just the idea of these works being digital, the artist has animated the works to sound. On the piece’s turn, seemingly at the striking of a clock to the hour a piece (with a well-known slogan) will shift wording. “A Battleground” (to use an earlier example,) becomes “Political,” “Mine,” etc. This matched with the loud bangs synchronized to the quick succession of the shifting slogan becomes anxiety-inducing and makes the work new. As Professor and Art Historian Terrance Smith would say, this is the very idea of contemporary art. Taking inspiration from the past and quoting it within a new visual language. I find it incredibly interesting that Kruger manages to take this inspiration directly from her older works, but brings them into a new age. The juxtaposition of the new screen-based works and the original pieces creates a sense of confusion as well. One finds themselves wondering, which of these is going to change next?
The large-scale video productions vary in theme from room to room. Some focusing on the narrative of the exhibition seem to be stream of consciousness writing tick tacking its way across the room. My personal favorite of the video art rooms was the one referring to religious discrimination in the United States. Subversive lines sprawl across the room and then boom a clip of prayers in a mosque take over one side of the room. Another moment passes and there is a snapshot of Rabbis cheering on the other side of the room, next to them and in the next moment the pope is seen among the Catholic masses, it goes on. In the next room, two close-ups of male mouths tell each other jokes that slowly become misogynistic, highlighting the casual sexism women experience consistently. Our engrained patriarchal society comes out in the form of jokes as we women see every day. This room was particularly favored by my two young nieces who were with me that day. It was interesting to hear their laughter fade as the jokes went on; I was glad that they could recognize when they were being insulted.
Of course, the now-iconic Kruger room takeovers were present in this exhibition as well. The dizzying words highlight the political struggles they described. These rooms always make me feel self-conscience while spinning around trying to read what was left for me to discover, but I found being joined by two little ones helped with that internal struggle. They of course wanted me to read it out loud, which was a whole other level of “hmm…” Kruger amplified this dizzying sense with more fluid text in these rooms, creating optical illusions that made the room looks misshaped or as if there was a huge dent in the middle of the floor.
All in all, the dizzying assortment of rooms with new technology really maintained a sense of contempeniety from an artist who very well could have left their artistic practice alone. The ability to change and stay up to date is the hallmark of a great artist. Paired with Kruger’s classic off-beat one-liners, this show is surely not to disappoint.
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