Barbara Kruger. Many people in the modern society recognize Barbara Kruger. Kruger is an artist of the present who has a strong focus on feminism. She specializes on production techniques, visual format, and verbal styles. Kruger uses photographs to create sentences that are then placed over top. Most often, the sentences are in bold, white lettering, enclosed by a brightly colored box. Barbara uses propaganda and advertising techniques to fight for gender parity. Billboards, books and museums are just a few of the places where her work can be found. Her aim is to reach a large audience. Kruger rejects commercial advertising and the dependence of propaganda on government authority. Her work is mostly untitled and referred as text inside an image. Kruger has featured in a number of books, podcasts and documentaries. She is a contemporary artist who has achieved great success. Barbara Kruger’s work is crucial in the current fight for equality.

Kruger created You Are Not Yourself, which is a good example. The 1981 photograph shows a young woman looking in a mirror, which has been shattered and stuck by a gunshot. The text is zigzagged to match the broken image. It drifts out of Kruger’s signature box. This image implies that women’s existence in society is fragmented. This image implies that women are expected to play certain roles, and to conform to the expectations of society. It leads to the conclusion that when women have the opportunity to finally look themselves in the eye, they find that they are “not themselves”. She is exactly who society wants. Kruger’s image encourages viewers to examine and question their own subjective nature.

Your Body is a Battleground is a 1989 work by Kruger. In 1989, there was a lot of protesting against new anti-abortion laws which were in direct opposition to the 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court ruling. She created this image as a support for reproductive rights at the Women’s March. Kruger did not only create this image to support abortion rights, but also to show the struggles of women in society. Kruger divided the face of a female in this picture. The positive side of the image is exposed, and the negative side is exposed. The text is aligned straight up the middle of the image.

Your Comfort is My Silence is the last Kruger work. The image was created also in 1981. Kruger draws attention to her work by using the signature mark she created, which is the power of images and words. It depicts a man who is hushing his audience with his finger. There is a white border around the text, but over the words “Your”, “silence”, and “Yours”, there’s a red border that looks like a sticker. This image portrays females as being submissive, while males are dominant. It speaks from the perspective of a woman. This image brings gender identity to light.

Barbara Kruger was, and is, an important player in the gender-equality movement. Her work draws attention to gender inequality and other issues like consumption, money and war. Kruger stated that “I am a picture and word artist because I believe they can define who we really are, what our desires and goals are, and how we manifest them”.