Barbara Kruger Quotes

Barbara Kruger delivers a punchy critique, pointing out that her only complaint is the world itself.

13 quotes

1. I have no complaints, except for the world.

2. I have frequently said, and I will repeat again, in the manner of any well-meaning seriality, that I'm interested in mixing the ingratiation of wishful thinking with the criticality of knowing better.

3. I'm trying to deal with ideas about histories, fame, hearsay, and how public identities are constructed.

4. I like suggesting that ‘we are slaves to the objects around us,’ that ‘plenty should be enough,’ or that the ‘buyer should beware,’ within the context of conventional selling space.

5. Money talks. It makes art. It determines what food we eat, whether we are cured or die, and what shoes we wear.

6. I'm living my life, not buying a lifestyle.

7. It's good to keep in mind that prominence is always a mix of hard work, eloquence in your practice, good timing and fortuitous social relations. Everything can't be personalized.

8. Direct address has been a consistent tactic in my work, regardless of the medium that I'm working in.

9. Prominence is cool, but when the delusion kicks in it can be a drag. Especially if you choose to surround yourself with friends and not acolytes.

10. I want people to be drawn into the space of the work. And a lot of people are like me in that they have relatively short attention spans. So I shoot for the window of opportunity.

11. I believe that who we are, and consequently the work that we make, whether we're visual artists or writers or journalists or filmmakers, is a projection of where we were born, what's been withheld or lavished upon us, our color, our sex, our class. And everything we do in life to some degree is a reflection of that context.

12. Love is something you fall into.

13. Memory is your image of perfection.