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| "Barbara Kruger" exhibition, 1991. Mary Boone Gallery |
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Installation at Mary Boone
Gallery
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Barbara Kruger produced three large-scale gallery installations
between 1989 and 1991. In these works, the artist transferred words
and images directly to the surfaces of the gallery. Each installation
featured a text
written on the floor in white type on a red ground. This text read:
"All that seemed beneath you is speaking to you now. All that seemed
deaf hears you. All that seemed dumb knows what's on your mind.
All that seemed blind sees through you. All that seemed silent is
putting the words right into your mouth." With a directness that
is characteristic of Kruger's work, the text addresses the viewer's
sense of certainty with the world. In Kruger's installation, the
floor now has a voice, the walls can hear you, and the architecture
is manipulating the way you speak. At Kruger's self-titled exhibition
at Mary Boone Gallery, this omnipresent, all-knowing and all-seeing
surveillance was heightened by the way in which text appeared not
only the floor but also on the walls and ceiling - enveloping the
viewer. To walk into the room was to be addressed from all sides,
left
and right. While one read a text, other messages would be transmitted
subliminally as one caught hold of a phrase or word in the corner
of one's eye. Disrupting the seeming naturalness of the white gallery
space, Kruger's treatment of the walls, floor, and ceiling underscored
the way in which architecture and social spaces have their own way
of speaking and representing the world. |
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