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Page 1 | 24
KUB 2013.04 | Press release
Barbara Kruger
Believe + Doubt
19|10|2013-
12|01|2014
Curators of the exhibition
Yilmaz Dziewior and Rudolf Sagmeister
Press Conference
Thursday, October 17, 2013, 12 noon
The exhibition is opened for the press at 11 a.m.
Opening
Friday, October 18, 2013, 7 p.m.
Page 2 | 24
Few artists have succeeded in treating the ambivalent ef-
fects of the mass media and their powers of persuasion in
impressive works of art so cogently and variously as Bar-
bara Kruger has done for more than four decades now. So
it is no surprise that she is represented in major museum
collections worldwide and enjoys broad public attention
through exhibitions at renowned institutions. She has had
large-scale solo exhibitions, for example, at the Museum
of Contemporary Art (MOCA) in Los Angeles, the Whitney
Museum of American Art in New York, and the Moderna
Museet in Stockholm. In addition, she participated in
documenta 7 (1982) and documenta 8 (1987) in Kassel,
and she received the »Golden Lion« at the 51st Venice
Biennale 2005 for her life’s work. It is all the more surpris-
ing then that the exhibition covering three floors of the
Kunsthaus Bregenz is her first major institutional solo
show in Austria.
Not that Barbara Kruger is a newcomer to Bregenz. In
summer 2011 she participated in the Kunsthaus Bregenz
solidarity action for Ai Weiwei by designing a poster con-
sisting of white lettering on a red ground asking »Why
Weiwei«—and adding, in smaller lettering below, her
familiar formula: »Belief + Doubt = Sanity.« Before this,
in the same year, for the KUB group exhibition That’s the
way we do it, she produced an almost 20 meter long by
4 meter high digital print that addressed the issues around
so called »intellectual property« and the distributional
powers of the internet.
The new solo exhibition especially designed by the artist
for the Kunsthaus gives visitors a chance to explore the
wide range of her artistic practice in different media.
Alongside a host of her celebrated photocollages from the
1980s and a four-channel video work of 2004, she is for
the most part presenting new installations in Bregenz that
have been especially conceived for the unique Kunsthaus
architecture. Through emphasizing different architectural
elements in turn (façade, wall, floor, ceiling) and deliberate
changes of media, she creates a varied trajectory that
sensitizes the viewer to the specific details of Peter
Zumthor’s building no less than to the fundamental im-
portance that Barbara Kruger attaches to art’s presenta-
tional context. What makes her videos, installations, col-
lages, posters, and photographs compelling, among other
things, is how she consciously reflects the art system—its
hierarchies and strategies as well as its presentational and
distributional relations. Again and again, Barbara Kruger
breaks out of this system’s closed circuit by conceiving
projects for magazines, poster walls, or other media and
sites in public space.
Page 3 | 24
These include permanent and temporary projects that refer
specifically to particular buildings, or which emerge at
sites in urban space in the form of designs for buses and
posters.
It is worth noting here that Barbara Kruger was already
using illustrations she found in mass media geared to a
wide audience for her b&w photocollage works at the start
of her career in the 1970s. Her first intensive involvement
with print media occurred shortly after she had finished
studying art and design, when she was employed as a
graphic artist and picture editor by Condé Nast Publica-
tions in New York. Among the magazines she worked on
were Mademoiselle and House and Garden. Her insights
there into the power of images, both to deter and to se-
duce, were an early influence on the artist’s work.
Throughout her career, Barbara Kruger has reflected on or
augmented the formal, thematic, and visual messages of
these specific communication strategies, often unmasking
their problematic ambiguity in the process. Just as the
distribution and presentation sites she has used (e.g. maga-
zines, posters) are characterized by a certain transience
and intensified circulation, so too Kruger often insists on
the ephemeral physical status of her works, since her wall
and large-scale spatial installations are usually destroyed
at the end of an exhibition. That they can be installed
again in the same or in a different form on another occa-
sion is just one of the ways in which the artist comments,
with relish and wit, on the complex commodity character
of art. Ultimately Barbara Kruger’s works are characterized
by a high level of social commitment, advocating women’s
rights, freedom of opinion, a critical awareness of the se-
ductions of consumer culture, and of how power, or the
lack of it, determines the feel of our days and nights.
These—in the best sense of the word—striking works are
captivating for their immediacy, their directness of address
involving the viewer by means of questions or clear-cut
statements. Depending on their message, her text-image
designs provoke the viewer to contradict, endorse, laugh,
or ponder. No one is left cold.
Page 4 | 24
Messages that Barbara Kruger has used in various contexts
are already legendary, for instance: »I shop, therefore I
am,« »Your body is a battleground,« or »We don’t need
another hero.« The images she combines with these and
other sentences have been fished out of the pool of visual
social memory, and for her words and statements she also
normally draws on what is already there. In both cases, she
deliberately shuns any hierarchy of high and low to create
the works that are to an equal extent political, iconic, and
poetic, for which she is widely known.
Text: Yilmaz Dziewior
Page 5 | 24
KUB Billboards
Barbara Kruger
07 | 10 | 2013 – 12 | 01 | 2014
Seestraße Bregenz
Barbara Kruger has selected text works for the six KUB
Billboards along Seestraße between the train station and
Kunsthaus Bregenz. Her iconic text-images directly address
passersby with short poetic-philosophical statements and
inquiries, occasionally also utilizing the German language,
so as to more closely engage the local public.
Page 6 | 24
The Seismographs of Architecture
From Model to Reality
November 8 to November 11, 2013
Kunsthaus Bregenz in cooperation with Peter Ebner—3M
futureLAB at UCLA + futureLAB at HUD
The symposium The Seismographs of Architecture is being
orginised as a platform for a dialogue at the interface be-
tween art, architecture, and society. The principle of per-
meating boundaries will itself become a subject of the
symposium. Internationally renowned experts are being
invited from a wide range of fields, including architects,
construction engineers, urban planners, designers, and
artists, who all share a desire to experiment as well as an
interest in current and new developments.
Friday, November 8
3.45 pm Welcome Yilmaz Dziewior
Director Kunsthaus Bregenz
3.55 pm Welcome Peter Ebner | 3M futureLAB at
UCLA + futureLAB at HUD
4 pm Heatherwick Studio—Ole Smith | Architect,
Designer, Great Britain
5 pm CAt—Kazuhiro Kojima & Kazuko Akamatsu |
Architects, Japan
7 pm Urban-Think Tank—Alfredo Brillembourg &
Hubert Klumpner | Architects, Urban
Planners, Venezuela|Switherland
8 pm Preston Scott Cohen | Architect, USA
Saturday, November 9
3 pm Ron Arad Studio—Asa Bruno | Designer,
Architect, Great Britain
4 pm Jan Knippers | Construction Engineer,
Germany|USA
5 pm Edouard François | Architect, France
7 pm Tomás Saraceno | Artist, Architect,
Germany|Argentina
8 pm MAD architects—Ma Yansong | Architect,
China|USA
Page 7 | 24
Architectural Tour—Vorarlberg’s Art of Construction
Saturday, November 9 – 9 am to 2 pm
This half-day architectural tour, accompanied by an expert
guide, will be visiting some recent examples of contempo-
rary architecture in Vorarlberg, such as the Altach Islamic
Cemetery (Bernardo Bader, 2012), which was nominated
for the Mies van der Rohe Award, and the Werkraumhaus
(Peter Zumthor, 2013). Fee: 40 Euros | 34 Euros (including
travel by coach, guided tours, and free entrance).
Booking: vai, Vorarlberger Architektur Institut,
[email protected], +43-5572-511 69-9542
Entry price for the symposium
9.– EUR | Reductions 6.50 EUR
For symposium enquiries, please contact
Lidiya Anastasova | Ext. -415
Reservations in advance are unfortunately not possible.
Simultaneous translations into German will be available for
talks in English.
Page 8 | 24
KUB Publication
Barbara Kruger
Barbara Kruger’s pictures and words engage issues of
power, pleasure, money, love, and death. Her photographs,
large scale textual installations, and immersive multi-
channel video work address the viewer through a kind of
intensely spatialized visual display.
The œuvre, which has been continuously developed over
several decades, will be examined from differing perspec-
tives in an in-depth conversation between the artist,
Beatriz Colomina (architectural theorist and historian), and
Mark Wigley (architect and architectural theorist). The con-
cept of the exhibition at Kunsthaus Bregenz, and the new
work which has been especially produced for it, will be
examined in Yilmaz Dziewior’s introductory essay.
The catalog’s comprehensive documentation of the installa-
tion in generous photographic spreads, designed in close
cooperation with the artist, demonstrates the enormous
currency of the statements as well as the powerful forms
of address within Barbara Kruger’s work.
Barbara Kruger
Edited by Yilmaz Dziewior;
With an essay by Yilmaz Dziewior and a conversation
between Beatriz Colomina, Mark Wigley, and
Barbara Kruger
German|English,
approx. 136 pages, 22 x 30 cm,
Hardcover with dust jacket,
date of publication: December 2013
42.– EUR
KUB Online-Shop
www.kunsthaus-bregenz.at
Page 9 | 24
KUB Artist’s Edition
Barbara Kruger
Exclusive special editions for the Kunsthaus Bregenz are a
result of close collaboration with artists and their produc-
tion processes.
On the occasion of her solo exhibition Barbara Kruger has
produced a limited edition archival pigment print, in which
she contrasts a grainy photograph of a close-up of a human
eye with a slogan that is both humorous as well as socio-
and consumer critical: »Du willst es. Du kaufst es. Du ver-
gisst es.« (»You want it. You buy it. You forget it.«).
Archival pigment print
40 x 60 cm,
limited edition of 8 + 1 A.P., stamped by the artist:
1.800.- EUR
including 10% sales tax;
packaging and shipping charges extra
Please contact
Caroline Schneider
Phone +43-5574-485 94-444
Page 10 | 24
Biography
Barbara Kruger
Barbara Kruger (born 1945) lives and works in Los Angeles
and New York. She was awarded the Golden Lion for her
life work at the Venice Biennale 2005 and currently
teaches at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA).
Important solo exhibitions of her work have been held at
the Institute of Contemporary Art, London (1983),
Kunsthalle Basel (1984), Musée d’art contemporain de
Montréal (1985), Kunsthalle Düsseldorf (1986), Serpentine
Gallery, London (1994), Museum of Contemporary Art, Los
Angeles (1999), Whitney Museum of American Art, New
York (2000) as well as the Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt
(2011), the Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich (2012), and
the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington
D.C. (2012).
Her work has appeared in numerous group exhibitions at
venues including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum,
New York (1987), Centre Pompidou, Paris (1988), Tate
Liverpool (2002), Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago
(2004), Palazzo Grassi, Venice (2006), Museum of Modern
Art, New York (2007), and Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam
(2012).
Page 11 | 24
Works in the exhibition
First floor
Barbara Kruger
Untitled (Suggestions), 2013
UV-print on vinyl, floor, 21 x 23 m
Page 12 | 24
Barbara Kruger
Untitled (We won’t be our own best enemy), 1986
Collage, 35.5 x 36 cm
Private Collection, courtesy of Luxembourg & Dayan
Barbara Kruger
Untitled (Our prices are insane!), 1987
Collage, 35 x 33.5 cm
Private Collection
Barbara Kruger
Untitled (Who is born to lose?), 1989
Collage, 43 x 26 cm
Private Collection
Page 13 | 24
Barbara Kruger
Untitled (Who is bought and sold?), 1989
Collage, 43 x 26 cm
Private Collection
Barbara Kruger
Untitled (We decorate your life), 1985
Collage, 35.5 x 34 cm
Private Collection
Barbara Kruger
Untitled (Memory is your image of perfection), 1982
Collage, 28.5 x 41 cm
Private Collection
Page 14 | 24
Barbara Kruger
Untitled (Are we having fun yet?), 1987
Collage, 38.5 x 30.5 cm
Private Collection
Barbara Kruger
Untitled (Your misery loves company), 1985
Collage, 35 x 33.5 cm
Courtesy of Sprüth Magers Berlin London
Barbara Kruger
Untitled (We will no longer be seen and not heard), 1986
Collage, 35.5 x 35 cm
Courtesy of Sprüth Magers Berlin London
Page 15 | 24
Barbara Kruger
Untitled (Who is free to choose?), 1989
Collage, 43 x 26 cm
Courtesy of Sprüth Magers Berlin London
Barbara Kruger
Untitled (Who is beyond the law?), 1989
Collage, 43 x 26 cm
Courtesy of Sprüth Magers Berlin London
Page 16 | 24
Barbara Kruger
Untitled (We are ordered to enter the sphere of fixation),
1985
Collage, 24 x 16 cm
Courtesy of Sprüth Magers Berlin London
Barbara Kruger
Untitled (We are public enemy number one), 1984
Collage, 22.5 x 14.8 cm
Courtesy of Sprüth Magers Berlin London
Barbara Kruger
Untitled (We don't need another hero), 1988
Collage, 8.7 x 19 cm
Courtesy of Sprüth Magers Berlin London
Page 17 | 24
Barbara Kruger
Untitled (You delight in the loss of others), 1982
Collage, 17.2 x 22.2 cm
Courtesy of Sprüth Magers Berlin London
Barbara Kruger
Untitled (Talk is cheap), 1985
Collage, 15 x 19.2 cm
Courtesy of Sprüth Magers Berlin London
Barbara Kruger
Untitled (Free love), 1988
Collage, 23.9 x 13.5 cm
Courtesy of Sprüth Magers Berlin London
Page 18 | 24
Barbara Kruger
Untitled (Who does the crime? Who does the time?), 1988
Collage, 9.9 x 23.9 cm
Courtesy of Sprüth Magers Berlin London
Barbara Kruger
Untitled (You kill time), 1983
Collage, 22 x 14.5 cm
Courtesy of Sprüth Magers Berlin London
Barbara Kruger
Untitled (You do what you can to get what you want), 1984
Collage, 22.7 x 14.4 cm
Courtesy of Sprüth Magers Berlin London
Page 19 | 24
Second floor
Barbara Kruger
Twelve, 2004
Video projection with four projections, 15 min loop with
12 sequences with 12 conversations, dimensions variable
Barbara Kruger has filmed twelve conversations in Los
Angeles, with actors and actresses reading their texts from
teleprompters. The heads of the speakers are projected,
larger than life, on two opposing walls in the exhibition
space, so that the discussions are conducted above the
heads of the exhibition visitors. The twelve emotionally
charged discussions revolve around such diverse issues
as family disputes, politics, everyday topics, relationship
problems, and theories of contemporary art.
Below the large-scale images of the speakers, strips of
texts by Barbara Kruger run through the projection that
relate to the spoken texts, commenting on or questioning
them.
This work by the artist physically locates visitors both
spatially and in terms of content in the middle of a culture
that is informed by the televisual and its genres of the
soap opera and reality show, and addresses the ways in
which our language and means of communication are influ-
enced by these.
Page 20 | 24
Third floor
Barbara Kruger
Untitled (Reminder), 2013
UV-print on PVC fabric, walls, 78 x 5 m
Facade
Barbara Kruger
Untitled (Tears), 2013
Facade
UV-Print on PVCmesh
20 x 20 m
Page 21 | 24
KUB Billboards
Seestraße, Bregenz
Barbara Kruger
Untitled (Belief + Doubt = Sanity), 2013
Barbara Kruger
Untitled (Ist blinder Idealismus reaktionär?), 2013
Barbara Kruger
Untitled (Gibt es ein Leben ohne Schmerz?), 2013
Page 22 | 24
Barbara Kruger
Untitled (Can money buy you love?), 2013
Barbara Kruger
Untitled (Know nothing, believe anything, forget everything), 2013
Barbara Kruger
Untitled (Art is as heavy as sorrow, as light as a breeze,…), 2013
Page 23 | 24
Partner and Sponsors
Kunsthaus Bregenz would like to thank its partners
for their generous financial support and
the cultural commitment that goes along with it.
Page 24 | 24
Venue | Organizer
Kunsthaus Bregenz
Director | Chief curator
Yilmaz Dziewior
Chief Executive
Werner Döring
Curator
Rudolf Sagmeister
Curator of the KUB Arena
Eva Birkenstock
Communications
Birgit Albers | ext. -413
Press photos to download
www.kunsthaus-bregenz.at
Art Education
Kirsten Helfrich | ext.-417
Publications | Editions
Katrin Wiethege | ext.-411
Sales Editions
Caroline Schneider | ext.-444
Hours
Tuesday to Sunday 10 a.m.—6 p.m.
Thursday 10 a.m.—9 p.m.
26.10.13, 10 a.m. — 6 p.m. | 01.11.13, 10 a.m. — 6 p.m.
08.12.13, 10 a.m. — 6 p.m. | 24., 25. and 31.12.13 closed
26.12.13, 10 a.m. — 9 p.m. | 01.01.14, 2 p.m. — 6 p.m.
06.01.14, 10 a.m. — 6 p.m.