A Look at Barbara Kruger and Jenny Holzer’s Use of Typography (2011)

Truisms were very influential on my peergroup in the 90s, as we learned about the series in art class. Later on, I acquired a set of some of the pieces and forget about them until articles like this come up! Not all of them are true, and some are just slogans that use the other truisms as a vehicle, but they are always fun to discover in seemingly random places.

The effect of discovering one of her proverbs that is pithy, specific, mostly true or at least belief affirming, and then at a time that seems random makes them seem like supernatural interventions. They asked, if that was the effect of art designed to provoke you, what was the effect of advertising, and can you choose your beliefs? ("Change your beliefs." was another Holzer meme.)

It would be interesting to interview artists who seem to have had foresight like that, and ask how they see it in the present, and whether they have similar insights about the future.

If you'd like to know a bit more about Barbara Kruger's art check out this video[1] that came out recently.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fU7eIbook8

I did a thing about Kruger for a design project once. I found it recently, and uploaded it to my portfolio[1]. It's in a really weird order that I should fix when I get round to it.

As a designer, Kruger is one of my favourite artists. Her ability to make simple typography mean so much more than just a few words is great and her career is fascinating.

[1] https://portfolio.pixelflow.xyz/portfolio/kruger/