Barbara Kruger Surveillance Is Your Busy Work

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Barbara Kruger
Barbara Kruger Surveillance Is Your Busy Work
c. 1983

About the Item

Barbara Kruger, ‘Surveillance is your busywork’, Rare Original Barbara Kruger public display piece, circa mid/early 1980s; produced by Kruger for a project with New York City’s Metro Transit Authority. A placard displayed throughout the city’s subways circa early 80’s. Off-set lithograph on thick wove paper 11 x 28 inches Unused and in very good condition 'Surveillance', an excerpt from Terry Barrett's “Criticizing Photographs": “A man is peering at us through a photographer’s lupe, a magnifying device for closely examining negatives.. One of his eyes is closed, the other open. The light source is directly in front of his face, and it is harsh, revealing... The photograph looks dated, out of style, but vaguely familiar. It is dramatically lit and reminiscent of black and white cops-and-robbers movies. Halftone dots are apparent. The word Surveillance is larger than the other words, in black type on a white strip, pasted at a slight diagonal above the mans eyes. The phrase “is your busy work” is at the bottom of the image, in white type on a black strip. The words are a declaratory sentence. They are accusatory. “Surveillance” is associated with spying, sneakiness, furtiveness, unwholesome activities. “Busywork” is not something we want to be accused of doing-we have more important things to do with our lives. Someone is being accused by someone of something, and there is an urgency about the image.” More on Barbara Kruger Best known for laying aggressively directive slogans over black-and-white photographs that she finds in magazines, Barbara Kruger developed a visual language that was strongly influenced by her early work as a graphic designer (at magazines including House and Garden, Mademoiselle, and Aperture). Among her most famous pieces are I shop, therefore I am (1987) and Your body is a battleground (1985). Informed by feminism, Kruger's work critiques consumerism and desire, and has appeared on billboards, bus cards, posters and in public parks, train station platforms, and other public spaces. She has also created site-specific installations comprised of video, film, audio, and projection. (source: Artsy)

Creator:
Barbara Kruger (1945, American)
Creation Year:
c. 1983
Dimensions:
Height: 11 in (27.94 cm)Width: 28 in (71.12 cm)
Medium:
Lithograph
Movement & Style:
Pop Art
Period:
1980-1989
Condition:
Very good.
Gallery Location:
NEW YORK, NY
Reference Number:
1stDibs: LU35439796762

Shop All Barbara Kruger

Barbara Kruger

Rising to prominence in the 1980s, iconic conceptual artist Barbara Kruger pioneered a combination of type and image in her signature colors of black, white and red that continues to captivate audiences and posit a forceful feminist critique of media and politics.

Kruger examines social issues and cultural forces like sexism and consumerism in her typically large-scale, widely imitated work, which sees her layering terse chunks of text in fonts such as Futura Bold Oblique over found black and white mass media photographic images. Radical and stimulating, her collages draw on her background as a commercial graphic designer for magazines at Condé Nast as well as her albeit brief time as a student at the Parsons School of Design in New York City, where Kruger studied under artists such as Diane Arbus.

Kruger’s use of straightforward, accessible language to make powerful statements recalls advertising slogans or magazine headlines — by employing the structure of the very thing she is critiquing, she subverts that specific medium’s reach and meaning.

The phrases that Kruger superimposes onto the imagery in her work are as pointed, direct and authoritative as the visuals, with best-known examples including I Shop Therefore I Am and You Are a Captive Audience. The artist is also a staunch feminist, using her work to make overt political statements such as in Untitled (Your Body Is a Battleground), which was initially created in 1989 to promote a women’s march in Washington, D.C., aimed at antiabortion legislation. By using “you” and “I,” Kruger invites viewers into the piece and forces them to reflect on their own position in society as well as how they interact with one another in contemporary life. In an increasingly politicized era that finds us engulfed in imagery like never before, her art is more urgent and arresting than ever.

Kruger’s works can be found in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, the Whitney Museum of American Art and other institutions.

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