BARBARA KRUGER
Barbara Kruger was born in Newark, New Jersey, in 1945.Kruger obtained a design job at Condé Nast Publications. Working for Mademoiselle Magazine. She layers found photographs from existing sources with pithy and aggressive text that involves the viewer in the struggle for power and control that her captions speak to. Much of her text questions the viewer about feminism, classicism, consumerism, and individual autonomy and desire, although her black-and-white images are culled from the mainstream magazines that sell the very ideas she is disputing.
This image by Barbara Kruger is a good example of physical manipulation. The message that she lays over the top of her images are very powerful in terms of feminism. As we can see this one reads 'Your body is a battlefield' which as soon as you read, provokes thoughts in your head about what she actually means by this. The image behind the writing shows a face with a dark and light side which to me represents two emotions fighting against each other. This links to the text about the body being a battlefield because as we know a battlefield has two sides. Therefore Barbara referring to the body being a battle field could mean that the good parts and the bad parts of our body fight each other in our own eyes. We have contradicting thoughts about ourself (especially women but also men) which cause us to make the bad parts fight the good. I think this is a powerful message from Kruger as it represents her stance in feminism and the pressure women feel to have the perfect appearance. The way the image is presented is very eye catching and portrays the message loud and clear in a simple but effective way.
To me this is a very powerful image that addresses a current issue in society. The issue that girls are going up too quickly and looking up to models at such a young age and trying to follow that example. I can tell from this photo that the little girl is from a beauty pageant and has clearly been made to dress this way so that she loos 'pretty'. Even from first glance at this image we can see that she is far too young to be wearing the amount of makeup she is and to have her hair done that way. I think the message that is over the top of the photo is very clever as it plays on the words 'I never want to grow up' but instead replaces it with 'ugly'. This shows that this girl is already grown up and instead of not wanting to be an adult she doesn't want to be ugly. This is a true and very extreme example of girl culture and the pressure to look a certain way. The look on the girls face isn't happy and smiling like we would expect from a young child getting their photo taken. Instead she looks like she has been made to do this against her own will and therefore doesn't have real happiness.
This image by Barbara Kruger is of a lady with ice cubes on her face that reads 'Super rich, Ultra gorgeous, Extra skinny, Forever young'. I think this image is very powerful as it outlines what society see's as our ultimate goal and if you don't fit that criteria then that is what you should be working towards. The image of the lady is very different as she has ice cubes all around her face which to us is a strange concept. It isn't typically what we'd expect her to be doing however it could be showing the lengths people go to, to achieve these standards. The photograph definitely reflects who Barbara Kruger is as she is a feminist. Therefore for her to be addressing what we see as perfect for women is proving her point of unrealistic goals set for women. She uses very powerful words in the writing such as 'Super, Ultra, Extra and Forever' this makes the concepts seem even more above average as they are emphasised. Overall the tone of the photograph shows quite an oblivious culture that aspires to unrealistic standards that try to make us all the same.
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