46 Facts About Barbara Kruger

Barbara Kruger was born on January 26,1945 and is an American conceptual artist and collagist associated with the Pictures Generation.

Barbara Kruger is most known for her collage style that consists of black-and-white photographs, overlaid with declarative captions, stated in white-on-red Futura Bold Oblique or Helvetica Ultra Condensed text.

Barbara Kruger is an Emerita Distinguished Professor of New Genres at the UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture.

In 2021, Barbara Kruger was included in Time magazine's annual list of the 100 Most Influential People.

Barbara Kruger was born into a working-class family in Newark, New Jersey.

Barbara Kruger's father worked as a chemical technician for Shell Oil and her mother was a legal secretary.

Barbara Kruger attended Syracuse University, but left after one year due to the death of her father.

Shortly after, Barbara Kruger was awarded the position of head designer for the following year.

Barbara Kruger initially worked as a designer at Mademoiselle and later moved on to work part-time as a picture editor for House and Garden, Aperture, and other publications.

Barbara Kruger wrote film, television, and music columns for Artforum and REALLIFE Magazine at the suggestion of her friend Ingrid Sischy.

Barbara Kruger crocheted, sewed, and painted brightly hued and erotically suggestive objects, some of which were included by curator Marcia Tucker in the 1973 Whitney Biennial.

Barbara Kruger drew her inspiration for these pieces from Magdalena Abakanowicz's show at the Museum of Modern Art.

Barbara Kruger then moved to Berkeley, California, where she taught at the University of California and became inspired by the writings of Walter Benjamin and Roland Barthes.

Barbara Kruger was inspired to photograph architecture by her family's practice of touring "model homes they could never afford".

At the beginning of her art career, Barbara Kruger reportedly felt intimidated by entering New York galleries due to the prevailing atmosphere of the art scene which, to her, did not welcome "particularly independent, non-masochistic women".

Barbara Kruger switched to her modern practice of collage in the early 1980s.

Barbara Kruger discusses her interest in representing "how we are to one another" and the "broad sort of scope" this provides for her work.

Barbara Kruger is considered to be part of the Pictures Generation.

Barbara Kruger's method includes developing her ideas on a computer, later transferring the results into printed images.

From 1992 on, Barbara Kruger designed covers for a number of magazines, including Ms.

In 1990, Barbara Kruger roused the Japanese American community of Little Tokyo, Los Angeles, with her proposal to paint the Pledge of Allegiance, bordered by provocative questions, on the side of a warehouse in the heart of the historic downtown neighborhood.

In 2022, as the arguably most important voice in art for Abortion-rights movements, Kruger created a series of new works in response to the leaked Supreme Court documents that would overturn Roe v Wade.

In 2017, Barbara Kruger collaborated with clothing brand Volcom for her contribution to the Performa 17 biennial in New York.

Barbara Kruger created a pop-up shop in the city's SoHo neighborhood where T-shirts, beanies, sweatshirts, and skateboards were up for sale.

Between 1998 and 2008, Barbara Kruger created permanent installations for the Fisher College of Business, the Broad Contemporary Art Museum at LACMA, and Price Center at the University of California, San Diego.

In 2012, Barbara Kruger created the permanent installation of her work Belief+Doubt in the lower level of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, DC.

In 2024, Kruger was among the 18 artists selected by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey to create installations for John F Kennedy International Airport's new Terminal 6, set to open in 2026.

Since the mid-1990s, Barbara Kruger has created large-scale immersive video and audio installations.

In 1997, Kruger produced a series of fiberglass sculptures of compromised public figures, including John F and Robert F Kennedy hoisting Marilyn Monroe on their shoulders.

In 2016, Barbara Kruger created a work protesting the election of Donald Trump for the cover of New York magazine and participated in a January 20,2017, inauguration boycott.

Barbara Kruger has taught an Independent Study Program at the Whitney Museum, and at the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, the University of California, Berkeley, and in Chicago.

Barbara Kruger has written about television, film, and culture for Artforum, Esquire, The New York Times, and The Village Voice.

Barbara Kruger was involved with a group of artists who had graduated from CalArts and gravitated to New York City in the 1970s, including Ross Bleckner and David Salle, listing them as her first peer group.

Barbara Kruger has since been the subject of many one-person exhibitions, including shows organized by the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, the Musee d'art contemporain de Montreal, Serpentine Gallery in London, Palazzo delle Papesse Centro Arte Contemporanea in Siena, the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, and Moderna Museet in Stockholm.

Barbara Kruger has participated in the Whitney Biennial and Documenta 7 and 8.

Barbara Kruger represented the United States at the Venice Biennale in 1982 and participated in 2005 and 2022.

Barbara Kruger received the prestigious Leone d'Oro for lifetime achievement.

In 2007, Barbara Kruger was one of the many artists to be a part of South Korea's Incheon Women Artists' Biennale in Seoul.

In September 2009, Barbara Kruger's Between Being Born and Dying, a major installation commissioned by the Lever House Art Collection, opened at the New York City architectural landmark Lever House.

In 2012, as a member of the board of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, Barbara Kruger volunteered to be the lead funder of the museum's scholarly exhibit Ends of the Earth: Land Art to 1974 and to create a new work on vinyl to sell, with proceeds going entirely toward the show's $1 million budget.

An exhibition of new and recent work from Barbara Kruger was hosted by Modern Art Oxford in 2014.

From September 19,2021, to January 24,2022, Barbara Kruger: Thinking of You, I Mean Me, I Mean You is a broad comprehensive, immersive exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago, traveling to Los Angeles County Museum of Art from March 20,2022, to July 17,2022.

At the 10th anniversary Gala in the Garden at the Hammer Museum in 2012, Barbara Kruger was honored by TV presenter Rachel Maddow.

In 2012, Barbara Kruger joined John Baldessari and Catherine Opie in leaving the Museum of Contemporary Art's board in protest, but later returned in support of the museum's new director, Philippe Vergne, in 2014.

In 2021, Barbara Kruger was included in Time magazine's annual list of the 100 Most Influential People.

Barbara Kruger herself had not commented on this issue until a recent lawsuit between Supreme and Leah McSweeney, founder of Married to the Mob, a women's street clothing brand.