S2 Week 6 - Barbara Kruger

Barbara Kruger's old poster-like artworks are some of the most instantly recognizable works in contemporary art today. She has used her background in graphic design and advertising to formulate her works and communicate in the most effective way possible. Using bold colors like black, white and red, her works are impossible to not notice.

Kruger has relatively recently become focused on installations, but these still pay homage to hr original poster style that made her famous. For example, 'Between Being Born and Dying' is an installation in which the viewer becomes a part of the poster, it's almost like being shrunk down and placed in the pages of a magazine, with bold text sprawling across every square inch of the gallery walls. The room loses it's sense of shape, and the viewer is truly lost amongst the words. Just when you thought Kruger's work couldn't be more penetratingly bold, she steps it up to a whole new level. Kruger has also taking these concepts and applied to them to video (and audio) installations.

Kruger uses staples of the graphic design and advertising industries to create the effect her work has. Contrast, simple and effective color schemes, powerful yet simplistic imagery and strong and balanced typography are all evident in her work and she uses these tools in the same way the advertising industry uses them to communicate with viewers. She uses a mass media style within an art context which is a great way to communicate artistic ideas and concepts with the masses who would otherwise not take the time to delve into the ideas behind many other contemporary artists work. Her simplistic forms should never take away from her work as an artist, as one can argue that art is just another form of communication, and Kruger's ability to communicate has reached the level of "art form".

Over the years, Kruger has explored taking her signature graphic style and applying it through different mediums. She has used projectors (most notably in the circular room of Louis Vuitton's flagship store in Paris) to add another dimension to her works, and while remaining true to form, have reinvigorated and reinvented her iconic poster works from earlier in her career. While she has explored works moving away from her original style (for example, 'The Globe Shrinks for Those Who Own it', 2010) , her main concept remains - the exploring of ourselves, and confronting of ourselves with who we really are, how we interact and how we work and are affected as a social unit. While her latest, more experimental works are a refreshing take on her often explored concepts, her original, bold and unforgettable "poster" works will always remain the poster of her artistic career - and with their brutally honest execution resulting in some of the most powerful imagery of the 20th century - rightfully so.

S2 Week 5 - Kehinde Wiley

Kehinde Wiley's portrayals of urban blacks in almost "royal" like settings and portraits are very interesting and raise a number of talking points. His paintings seem to reference the portraits, commissioned or not, of people in power - those that transcend the norm to become much more than just a person, but a figure. The patterns he intertwines with his portraits - many from old French wallpaper - add to this "royal" feeling behind his works. Some of his works reference religious figures, and provide a sense of contrast as he rebuilds these religious scenes and personalities using inner city blacks, whose images seem to be the polar opposite of the originals.

I believe Wiley is trying to take the often overlooked and impoverished urban black male and place them in the realm of power that the modern elite have enjoyed. He is replacing the central figures in a wide range of contexts with his people - the blacks of the inner cities in America. This demographic has long been disadvantaged, and Wiley's paintings ask why these people can't be seen in the way he paints them. He is taking a demographic that is very rarely seen in this light, and throwing them into it - completely as they are - not trying to hide any aspect of the urban culture. Essentially, he replacing the pompous outfits of histories figures, mostly white, whose portraits live on centuries later, with the typical, disadvantages and often misunderstood inner city black male.

His works are not only technically excellent, but also extremely interesting and raise some very important topics with the simple, yet incredibly strong concept of replacement.