Thursday, September 17, 2009
Postmodern blog
Barbara Kruger uses a mixture of manipulated photography and text to make her postmodern works of art. Essentially, postmodernism is a trend in art, literature and philosophy that represents itself in direct opposition to modernism. Postmodernism claims a style that is not so much about the aesthetic of a work of art as it is an expression of an idea. Modernist artists tends to critique the past by exploring nuances of their own. Postmodern artists like Barbara Kruger use ideas from other people, change the original context and create new representations all together. In her work "Allegiance", Kruger displays four boxes of text; one with the pledge of allegiance, one with a marriage vow, one that designates a will and the last one with a barrage of questions that make the viewer think about the three pledges that a vast majority of Americans take with out notice. This work is considered art because there is obvious attention to color scheme and composition. The white lines between the texts make one think of a cross and other allegiances one takes.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Excellent choice. Barbara Kruger is certainly a postmodern artist working with postmodern strategies. As you rightly point out, she uses appropriation of familiar phrases to get her viewers to re-think their relationship to the world.
ReplyDeleteI would argue that even if there was no obvious attention to color scheme and composition this would still be considered a work of art. However, Kruger has created a personal visual style - almost a brand - using this same red and white (sometimes black) color scheme and similar font. In a way, while this is her own style, it is also de-personalized and echoes the style of corporations and advertisements that she is critiquing.
I wish the image itself was embedded in your post - when posting, click on the little icon of a picture above the post box and you can either link to an image or upload one.