A sharp critic of popular culture, Kruger addresses the viewer directly to expose the power dynamics that underlie identity, desire and consumerism. Kruger’s large-scale commission for MoMA will envelop the Marron Family Atrium with the artist’s bold textual statements about truth, faith and power.
Image above: Barbara Kruger: Thinking of You. I Mean Me. I Mean You. Installation view, 2022 Digital Image © 2022 The Museum of Modern Art, New York, Photo: Emile Askey
Combining images from the mass media with provocative, incisive language, Kruger has explored social relationships for more than 40 years, informed by her distinctive sense of urgency and humour. The MoMA installation will draw on the artist’s longstanding interest in architecture to immerse the viewer in a thought-provoking environment that offers multiple points of access and view. With characteristic force, the work will explore the ways in which the relationships between spatial and political power inevitably relate to considerations of inclusion and exclusion, dominance and agency.
“I try to make work that combines the lure of wishful thinking with the criticality of knowing better”.
Barbara Kruger
Thinking of You. I Mean Me. I Mean You. is organised by the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Art Institute of Chicago and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. The MoMA installation is organised by Peter Eleey, former Chief Curator of MoMA PS1, and Lanka Tattersall, Curator of the Department of Drawings and Prints. This exhibition is made possible by the Eyal and Marilyn Ofer Family Foundation in honour of Barbara Kruger.
WHEN?
Exhibition dates: until Montag, 2. januar 2023
WHERE?
The Museum of Modern Art
11 W 53rd St, New York
10019 New York
United States