Cleghorn 1Kristen CleghornProf. Joan KeeHISTART 39420 Dec. 2012Shaping Historical Discourse Through Public ArtIm interested in how identities are constructed, how stereotypes are formed, how narratives sort of congeal and become history.- B A R B A R A K R U G E R -

I. IntroductionIt is an often-discussed idea that history books are generally written by the winners. Whether this is the government, academia, or the social elite, groups in power dictate the way information is presented and remembered for future generations. The United States is more democratic in its representation compared to countries notorious for censorship, like North Korea, and historically Russia and Germany. However, it is still difficult to voice political dissent in a recognizable way, let alone to do so as an individual. Barbara Kruger is an artist that attempts to shape an alternative point of view on current events, to instigate a discourse between the publics collective memory constructed by the powerful, and the one that she presents. Richard Martin explains that at one time the past was controlled by the elite who spun it for their own purposesthe people, without the roots on which memory must be based, were more content to live in the presentthe individualization of democracy puts a new spin on personal and collective memory and the construction of monuments to freeze and symbolize that memory (111). Krugers individualization of democracy happens through her works of dissent that have stood the test of timedoing so through the way that she brings issues out of the private sphere and into the public. Skeptics like John R. Gillis suggest that taking memory out of the hands of specialists does not necessarily democratize it (qtd. in Martin, 111) but Kruger is certainly making an attempt to display an individual voice of dissent, which is democratic by nature due to free speech being a historical centerpiece of American patriotism (Knight). Kruger is certainly playing a large role in this individualization of democracy, as she was one of the first women to address representation and show that pictures and words have determined how we are defined and confined (Drohojowska-Philp).There are many theories behind why Kruger is so successful at bringing the discussion and recollection of political issues to a populist importance. One of these reasons is her works ability to defy standard artistic classification. Martin asserted Krugers art transfigures popular imagery and comment into declarations of High Artbut [it] also reveal[s] the fallacies in the presumptive high-culture position vis--vis popular culture appreciation (110). Kruger has the ability to display her works in galleries and therefore legitimizes it (at least by the art worlds standards), as well as connects with the layman through her appropriation of images and use of popular design and advertising techniques. Kruger in this respect is almost a brand, using a singular color scheme and font for a majority of her text-and-image works. Many art critics would deem her work kitschy, but using these techniques has resulted in popularity among art appreciators of every kind. Another theory is that Kruger provides artwork that critiques the very institutions it benefits from, solidifying its legitimacy as a voice of dissent among viewers. Her token phrase I Shop Therefore I Am is a comment on consumerism, yet the image of the work has been printed and sold on various merchandise. Esther Leslie acknowledged that Kruger is aware and critical of power in various forms, including the power of the academy to circumscribe critical discourse. She has insisted that theory break out of academia and invade public discourse (25). The use of her slogans on T-shirts, bags, and posters is the very invasion that is unfortunately important for messages to be integrated and discussed among the public. This truly does call into question the ability and right of academia to choose the direction of collective memory when even she can subvert their intentions.Another theory on the effectiveness of Krugers work is that the actual content of the pieces gives the viewer the ability to be critical, and move from being passive to actively engaged in shaping history. Shepard Fairey was quoted as saying that Kruger broadened the conversation about the role of politics in art, which was accomplished through her use of pointed slogans and non-specific pronouns. For example, in Untitled (We Dont Need Another Hero) the slogan We dont need another hero, is phrased as if she is speaking for the collective we. The viewer must ask, who is she referring to? The United States? Humanity? This sort of ambiguity could entice a viewer to search for meaning in the context in which it was made, which will be discussed later in this paper. In addition to the word choice, the slogans or statements are often juxtaposed with photographs that would not normally correlate. The photographs themselves, as they are captured moments, are often viewed as the truth. However, Kruger frequently points to photographys mendacious ability to present the seemingly real and evidential. Such powers are problematic and Kruger strives to undercut photographys rhetoric of the real through the textual commentary which accompanies them (Leslie 25). Photographs do capture actual events, however, the way that a shot is framed or the angle from which it is taken can vastly skew or distort its meaning. In addition, as Joseph Stalin proved, photographs can be edited, cropped, or changed entirely and their integrity can be compromised. Krugers placement of text over seemingly innocuous photographs causes the viewer to think of the two in relation to each other, and how a situation can be viewed differently with Krugers suggestions. She truly seeks to undermine the idea of what the public considers to be the truth, through her text, because she sees it as a construct of fiction wielded by power (Leslie 27).All of these theories attempt to explain how Kruger has managed to impact the collective memory and the ability of both herself and her viewers to take the power of shaping history from the elite. However, the most important and impactful aspect of Krugers work overshadows these. Perhaps best said by Marshall McLuhan, the medium is the message. It is the aspects of the medium, which are Krugers stylistic choices, the mode of exhibit, the location of the works, and the size of her installations that essentially become cultural propaganda and bring political issues from the private into the public sphere for discussion. Much of her talent in shaping the medium of her works comes from her background in advertising, and she employs mass media techniques to successfully grab the viewers attention as quickly as possible (Chiang 48-49). Using a fusion of mass media techniques, in addition to exhibitions in places of high art in museums and galleries, makes her work diverse and accessible to the world. Leslie said that in some sense the displacement of her work from galleries to public spaces attempts to project theory into the public realm (26), and the direct nature of her projections have differing effects in a gallery space (which is apparently neutral) versus outside it, which can be considered the concrete social world (Leslie 27). Krugers integration of public spaces as a medium is so effective and striking that it wasnt until 1999, over a decade after the start of her most famous work, that she was given a retrospective showing due to the larger museums resist[ing] surveying what has been called [Krugers] theater of dissent (Drohojowska-Philp). In fact, for the larger part of her career in politically motivated art making, she has produced very few salable objects for gallery or museum shows. Instead, she concentrated on the public realm, conceiving, for example, the 200-foot-long sculptural letters Picture Thisat the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh (Drohojowska-Philp). The most prominent galleries were clearly resistant to embracing Krugers work due to the previously mentioned inherent critique of power (including the gallery itself) in her works.II. Case StudiesBefore providing specific examples of Krugers works and the way in which the medium is used to shape historical discourse, it is important to recognize the differences between the normal mode of defining the collective memory, and the way that Kruger attempts to do so. The government, in combination with historians and power-players spanning corporate interests and ethics alike, is able to make the nations decisions and choose to commemorate the corresponding outcomes. Public statements and even monuments of the governments choosing determine the retrospective summary of an event. Kruger has been quoted as questioning, what gets historicized? What gets edited? (Drohojowska-Philp). She attempts to make her own monuments of sorts; she tries to understand why discourse has been shaped a certain way, why specific events are omitted from discussion, and what there is to gain from publicizing as a means of protest.The medium through which Kruger accomplishes this protest often has many of the same characteristics, which as described helps meet her goal of instantaneous recognition and direct foray into focusing the attention of viewers. These characteristics include appropriation of tightly cropped black and white photos with a splash of red and exclusive use of varied sizes of the Futura bold italic font in her pithy captions (Chiang 51) and the elements of images and copyjuxtaposed to comment on and/or confront issues of interest to her (Chiang 43). These elements, coupled with size and location of display, have a nature of propaganda that Kruger uses subversively; her works will always have this additional layer of irony.

Barbara Kruger, Untitled (We dont need another hero)90" by 117" photographic silkscreen/vinyl, 1987

The first work that has already been mentioned, Untitled (We dont need another hero) is a fine example of the use of medium as a means to strongly convey her idea about a political event. The appropriated image, surrounded by a bounding red solid frame, is a black and white rendering of a woman pointing at the bicep of a young boy flexing his arm and making a smug face. The text We dont need another hero emblazons a red banner across the bottom half of the image. This juxtaposition is nearly sarcastic; the term hero is normally not used lightly, and in correspondence to the boy in the image, the viewer can interpret calling this boy a hero as a joke. To put the work in context, it was produced in the mid-1980s during the time that the Reagan administration sent US troops to Grenada to overthrow its government in fear of it becoming a socialist state. It was also at this time when the controversial Iran-Contra affair occurred (Chiang 43). The US government essentially stepped into another country in order to fix a problem, and then started another military effort and sold weapons to another country, and then started a war with Iran. It is unlikely that neither history books nor the newspapers would allow for this interpretation of events (shedding a negative light on the United States) to be recorded. Just like an American history book would describe the bombings on Hiroshima and Nagasaki as retaliation for the attack on Pearl Harbor, but neglect to portray them as bombing civilians in response to a military attack. As for the text that was chosen, Kruger admitted that she took the line from the title of the Tina Turner song [with the same name] (Chiang 43). An excerpt of the lyrics: And I wonder when are we ever gonna change itLiving under the fear till nothing else remainsWe dont need another hero (Turner)This question of change, rather demanded by the last line, was brought to the public in the form of a billboard, all over the country and across the globe. The signs were displayed during a time of political controversy and unrest over the Reagan era (Chiang 45). Had this work been a poster, or displayed in a gallery, or wasnt so recognizable as Kruger strives to accomplish, the impact would not have been the same. Such a public display of dissent on a global stage is unique due to the United States protection of free speech. The billboards were intentionally placed in other countries as well, to call the worlds attention to the fact that its citizens were not pleased with the actions of their government. The hero, in this case, becomes The United States to the public; Kruger is communicating, perhaps war in which heroes are produced, is not the solution to quell all conflicts (Chiang, 45) or even that The United States does not need to act as the worlds police, solving the problems of other nations.

Barbara Kruger, Untitled (Your body is a battleground)112 by 112 photographic silkscreen/vinyl, 1989

The next work is Krugers 1989 piece, Untitled (Your body is a battleground). The work uses a very tightly cropped black and white image of a womans face that has been split to a positive image on the left side and a negative image on the right (Chiang 46), the woman appearing to be the standardized face of a dark-haired, twenty-something with lipstick and normal makeup applied. She is making a complacent expression, lips almost smirking and demanding a response to the text laid over it. Two red lines accompany either side vertically, with the text Your body is a battleground in banners split into three segments evenly centered over the split image. The interpretation of this piece without context could go in many directions; the idea of feminism and the womens rights movement, the rise of AIDs disease and its growing dominance in the lesbian population, and lastly (and in Krugers respect, correctly) the abortion legalization debate. The split in the image has been interpreted as a representation of the two different factions of pro-life and pro-choice supporters (Chiang 48), with your body indicating a womans body, and battleground being the place where opposing parties battle for their own ideas about abortion and its legality.The medium is certainly the most important and prolific aspect of this piece; it was designed as a poster to announce a pro-choice rally held in Washington D.C. on April 9, 1989 (Chiang 46) in response to George H.W. Bushs Administrations planned Supreme Court hearing to occur later that month attempting to overturn Roe v. Wade. That decision was made in 1973 and solidified a womans right to privacy should she choose to have an abortion. This aspect alone in correspondence with the work makes Krugers choice of the poster format even more provocativethe decision would be made to overturn that privacy, but in a very public forum. The posters, using the same characteristics of Krugers other work, demand public attention to a private issue that has become a largely national debate. The Supreme Court hearing was no doubt publicized in the news and supported by Bush Sr.s administration, but the pro-choice rally would not have received as much attention.Portraying the womans body as a battleground lends itself to the idea of the womans body and its undecided future being an open arena that is attacked from all sides. Krugers posters gained traction and popularity, eventually spurring a group of womens rights organizations to produce advertisements in homage to Krugers classic style of black and white photography with red and white, featuring Futura for the text. These were created on a greater scale, visible on the sides of all modes of transportation in New York City in order to promote legalized abortion. The advertisements even used Krugers ideas of discourse being formed by groups of power to create the copy, which questioned the role that men should have in discussions on abortion. Krugers far-reaching poster campaign in her signature style not only advocated for a cause, but sparked viewers to respond with their own thoughts about a change in public discourse. Without Krugers attendance to the medium, the social response to the rally and a voice in dissent about the hearing would not have been so loudly heard.

Barbara Kruger, Installation View of Italian Pavilion at 51st Venice BiennaleVinyl, 2005

The next and vastly different medium to discuss is that of Krugers vinyl text installation on the faade of the Italian Pavilion at the 51st Venice Biennale, for which the curators awarded her with the Golden Lion Award for Lifetime Achievement. The curators divided the works at the Biennale, interestingly enough, into personal politics and public politics, which Kruger believes to be very directly linked. Divided into a militaristic 3 parts, green at the left, red at the right, white [left] in-between. It mimics the Italian flag. The background is a tangle of lines (Knight). The text itself, spelled out in both English and Italian, is the words money and power along the columns. On the left, pretend things are going as planned and on the right, God is on my side; he told me so. The middle reads, admit nothing, blame everyone. You make history when you do business. No questions. No doubt. Go it alone.There are astounding connotations attached to Italy and this building in relation to the text placed over its architecturethe text Kruger chose would lose a majority of its meaning if placed elsewhere in a different medium. The front of the pavilion itself was rebuilt in 1932 in the architectural style of stripped classicism, favored by Mussolini, (Knight) which already sets the stage for public political commentary. Christopher Knight poignantly asserted Italian fascism represented the calamitous takeover of the state by corporate interests, a modern fusion of money and power that the artist brings up to date (Knight). The text money and power then, crawling up the columns, are to be interpreted as literally holding up the structure of the building. Money and power go hand in hand, and one without the other would cause the building to collapse. This reinforces Krugers positing of the elite as controlling society, and that the common public does not have power because they do not have the money (its all or nothing.)Further, Kruger calls the vinyl letter installation a tattoo, which Knight aptly points out that aside from the familiar meaning, tattoo has another, older connotation. It is a signal sounded to summon soldiers or sailors to their quarters at night (Knight). This seems to correlate to the text strongly because of its promotion of singular action when no singular blame can be placed. Soldiers in any army are taught to obey orders regardless of their personal reluctance or potential guilt. This is especially true under totalitarian regimes like Mussolinis in Italy, and definitely under Hitler. The famous Stanley Milgram experiment, started mere months after the beginnings of the trials of Nazi war criminals, concluded that people are extremely willing to obey authority figures even when it conflicts with their morals or conscience. Therefore, Krugers clever naming of her installation as a tattoo could be a signal to those in the military, sarcastically telling them that even though something may seem wrong to them, even if they have faith in God, whatever consequences their actions produce dont have to be their fault, because someone else is to blame. In 2005 this message could be directed at countless topics rooted in violence, but certainly through its ambiguity, location, size, material, and dramatic staging it accomplishes starting a major discussion on the dichotomy of power and submission, money and lack thereof, and belief and doubt. Unlike Krugers other works, this installation intentionally leaves the interpretation to the public on whatever discussion they deem salient. Knight points out that Krugers tattoo makes no mention of the Iraq war, the Bush administration, Christian or Islamic Fundamentalism, Osama bin Laden, or any other topical subject; yet the blunt allusion to these and more is inescapable (Knight). The medium is most important to the works success, but the publics reception is also key to beginning conversations about topics relevant in Italy, in America, and in every government and group wielding power the world over.Barbara Kruger, Installation View of Belief + DoubtVinyl, Hirshhorn Museum, 2012(Previous page)The site-specific installation of Krugers Belief + Doubt is perhaps the best example of Krugers utilization of medium in all the years of her work. The installation placed in August 2012 in the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington D.C. will be visible from two floors of public space, filling the entire lower lobby area, also covering the sides and undersides of the escalators (Rosenbaum 20) for the next three years. Perhaps ironically, it also spills into the museums bookstore. The topic this time is much more concrete than that of the 2005 Biennale installation: the binary of belief and doubt, which the piece is so aptly named. This installation comes at a time in which both major political parties in The United States seem to be the most polarized in history. Congress is the least productive and most deadlocked that it has been in decades with a shocking approval rating of around 10%, even with the mounting terrors of the fiscal cliff, staggering unemployment, and implementation of universal health care. But it isnt just legislation; the shootings in Newton, Connecticut sparked a fiery gun control debate, the recent presidential election pitted religious and secular ideologies against each other, and online forums/social media have never been a hotter battleground in which to argue political issues. Constituents of both parties hold tightly to the certainty of their correctness, and it seems that having a strong political opinion is especially demanded and valued by peersone Facebook user attending this university declared that anyone voting for Mitt Romney could promptly de-friend him. Around 20 heeded his call.Kruger said simply, Im interested in introducing doubt. What is it exactly that makes individuals believe so strongly that their opinions are fact? Kruger has an answer for that, too. Both sidesbeliever and atheistdepend on certainty to hold themselves together. A dynamic that also might explain the deadlock in politics in Washington: both sides refusing to admit the slightest doubt about their position, about their values, about the claim to have all the answers (Rosenbaum 22). She goes on to explain that with the absence of doubt, each side clings to its values, devaluing the other sides values, making any cooperation an act of betrayal (Rosenbaum 22). Krugers statements on the ideology behind the installation make obvious many of the choices pertaining to the medium; every aspect of the pieces construction and placement aggressively urge the public to take notice and start talking about the major problems facing the countrys ability to govern itself. To begin with, Hirshhorn Museum is in Washington D.C., the flagship of The United States legislative power. And even with the museums close proximity to Capitol Hill (its within a 5 minute drive), it is unlikely that those in power will set foot inside the exhibit, considering many of them only set foot in their place of employment when absolutely necessary. The parallel between this fact and the size of the installation are apparent; the work is quite clearly overbearing and unavoidable; vinyl lettering covers even the undersides of the escalators and virtually every inch of the space available. Even the duration of the exhibitthree years!demands the publics attention to the issue. Kruger sticks to her normal black, white, and red color palette but the text has changed. It is not the rhetoric or tone of voice that has been altered; her voice remains the same. But this time she has ditched the unassuming sentence-case Futura for larger-than-life all-caps questions and demands. WHO IS BEYOND THE LAW? WHO IS FREE TO CHOOSE? WHO SPEAKS? WHO IS SILENT? and YOU WANT IT. YOU BUY IT. YOU FORGET IT. and PLENTY SHOULD BE ENOUGH and WHOSE VALUES? assert their dominance and beg the question: will Washington D.C. take notice? Will this angry display straight from the thoughts of frustrated citizens in the form of room-sized confrontation spark something that shifts the power away from the elite? If it does not, it will be nearly impossible for public memory to forget such a lasting and impactful mode of dissent.Before concluding, there is one last important installation to review with (relatively) successful medium utilization, which is shrouded in unrestperhaps due to the stir that it caused in the community in 1989, it can be considered as the most successful use. In the Japanese American community of Little Tokyo, Kruger proposed to paint the Pledge of Allegiance, among other questions, on the side of a warehouse owned by the Museum of Contemporary Art in a neighborhood in a historic downtown location. The Pledge of Allegiance, while innocent in nature, carries a special meaning and fresh history among those living in Little Tokyo. Those in the communityremembered all too well having to recite the pledge while interred at Manzanar and other wartime camps. To them, Krugers concept was an affront (Drohojowska-Philp). Eventually, Kruger ended up removing the text to the pledge of allegiance, but kept the series of questions; some were reiterated in Belief + Doubt. The text demanded, who is bought and sold? Who is beyond the law? Who is free to choose? Who follows order? Who salutes longest? Who prays loudest? Who dies first? Who laughs last?This warehouse remembered by the controversy happened to be the location where Krugers first major retrospective was held, ten years later in 1999. Her attempt to use the appropriation of subjectively memory-stirring text in that location and the outcry it caused is one homage to Krugers consideration of the medium, but she took it a step further by including a public component of the retrospective. She decided to go on a citywide blitz of 15 billboards and countless wild postings, executed and installed in both English and Spanishus[ing] her photo of a woman peering through a magnifying glass with the droll refrain, Its a small world but not if you have to clean it (Drohojowska-Philp). Kruger managed to not only bring up the topic of Japanese-American internment, but also address the large Spanish-speaking population, and then was still able to publicize the work with more finesse than most businesses can advertise. These aspects are the most important, disregarding the message altogether, because she took her retrospective from a high-art environment completely into the public. She addressed a unique population, reached out with the language of an under-represented local population, and put work one would normally find in a gallery on billboards and posters in the streets of Los Angeles. She truly managed to flip the characteristics of fine art as defined by the elite completely on its head.Barbara Kruger, Untitled (Shafted), 2008.86 ft. 5 1/8 in. by 55 ft., digital print wall installation

III. ConclusionBarbara Kruger appropriates found images and text for her work, usually chosen to jar the audience with unexpected pairings of these elements. The groupings are not random; even stand-alone or short-term installation pieces have the carefully crafted and subversive qualities of her most accomplished works. An example that truly epitomizes Krugers successful manipulation of the medium and its role in shaping historical discourse can be found with Untitled (Shafted), which was designed for the Broad Contemporary Art Museum. Created in 2008, she first starts integrating the all-caps that would be utilized in the 2012 Belief + Doubt installation. The piece almost follows a grid, with clear separations of color and text. The most salient element is at the top, where the mans head is exploding into what looks like a blank white mushroom cloud, and on the cloud is written: if you want a picture, imagine a boot stomping on a human face forever (Rosenbaum 22). It is text that may be overlooked due to the mass amount of content, but the quote is from George Orwell in 1984.1984 is infamous for its dystopia with a totalitarian ideology and persecution of individuality by the elite. So even with the text alluding to consumerism and the lists of things society may pressure to push on an individual (spirituality, bigger breasts, drugs), Kruger still manages to sneak in a parallel between an eerie fictional political space and the idea of the elite determining history. The large-scale wall installation was placed in a newly-opened-at-the-time museum, begging for fresh eyes to look upon her art and catch the subtleties that thrive in her every work, no matter how large or small.Barbara Krugers 34-year-long career of challenging the nearly unchallengeable has inspired countless artists, projects, and political ideas. While every facet of her work is important in the realm of political art, there is truly no other artist who so fluidly manipulates the medium as a catalyst for social change and advocates the publics involvement in the shaping of the worlds collective memory.

Works CitedChiang-Schultheiss, Christine. Barbara Kruger revisited: Visual artist-cum-mass media maven.Diss. California State University, Fullerton, 2008. Proquest Database.Drohojowska-Philp, Hunter. She Has a Way With Words; A MOCA retrospective of BarbaraKrugers work asks provocative questions about how we communicate. Los AngelesTimes 17 Oct. 1999: 4. Online.Knight, Christopher. Art Review: Fueled by politics. Los Angeles Times 21 June 2005: E.1.OnlineLeslie, Esther. Barbara Kruger. Art: Key Contemporary Thinkers. Ed. Jonathan Vickery andDiarmuid Costello. Oxford: Berg Publishers, 2007. 25-28. Online.Martin, Richard. Book ReviewsRemote Control: Power, Cultures, and the World ofAppearance by Barbara Kruger. Journal of American Culture. 18.4 (1995): 110. Online.Rosenbaum, Ron. Speaking Truth to Power. Smithsonian. 43.4 (2012): 20, 22, 24. Online.Smith, Roberta. Art in Review. New York Times 18 Mar. 1994: C.23. Online.Turner, Tina. We Dont Need Another Hero. Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome Soundtrack. Capitol Records: 1985.