A major exhibition of Barbara Kruger’s work has just closed at the Chicago Art Institute.
The entrance to the exhibition featured the work Untitled (That’s the Way We Do It) (2011/2020), which prior to visiting I’d read about but had never actually seen images of. The installation “appropriate[s] her own earlier work and feature[s] others’ appropriations of her work found online. […] raising questions about art, authenticity, and authorship in the digital age and about the alarming proliferation of visual information we are exposed to every day.”
As someone with a BFA in graphic design and therefore a serial appropriator of Kruger myself, I was curious if she (or more likely her assistants I suppose) had ever stumbled across any of my work online. In the back right corner of the installation right next to the door to the first gallery I found my answer.
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I’d long since given up hope on any of “my work” ever showing up in the Art Institute, and yet there it was, a Barbara Kruger shitpost posted to my Tumblr over a decade ago printed on vinyl and on the hallowed walls of Regenstein Hall. One interesting (to me) thing to note. If you look on the wall, there’s a white gap on the right side of the image that was present in the very first version of the work that I posted online but then later corrected. So however the work found its way to her, it was that briefly lived original version and not the later “corrected” version I replaced it with and printed on postcards.
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You can even see this section of the piece in one of the photos the New York Times included in their review of the show.
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Personal connection aside, I thought it was an excellent show. I’d been apprehensive because before going to the opening I’d gone to see a projection piece she was commissioned to do at the Merchandise Mart that did not connect with me at all.
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But like I said, I was pleasantly surprised by the exhibit. In addition to the really enjoying seeing the original pasteups of some of her most iconic work, I was introduced to a ton of video and sound work I was unfamiliar with but really loved. There was kind of a silly Powerpointesque jigsaw effect applied on some pieces, but who am I to judge to using digital “low art” techniques. The longer video work really showed Kruger’s wit and mastery over language. It was also great to finally see some of the room-scale type installations which I’ve only ever seen in photographs.
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