As she later went on to become an artist herself, “the availability of my work was important to me,” she said in an exclusive After stints as a telephone operator and a billing clerk, and after studying at Parsons School of Design, Kruger landed a job at Production still from the Art21 “Extended Play” film, “Barbara Kruger: Part of the Discourse.” © Art21, Inc. 2018.In 2017, as part of a commission for Performa, she transformed a Lower East Side skatepark into an art gallery, plastered with massive text-based works that assaulted passersby with fire engine red and white graphics that read, among other things, “Money talks” and “Whose values?”©2020 Artnet Worldwide Corporation. Galleries are interesting because they’re free for people. Now it’s much better. I never did. Tribeca is exhibit A. That need to create commentary is huge. Since much of your work is public—wrapped around buses, on the steps of train stations, inside churches—does the history of politics or functions of the place determine what you will show?KRUGER: Of course. There are very few speculative bubbles left, and the art world is one of them.

As part of a collaboration with Art21, hear news-making artists describe their inspirations in their own words.As a young girl growing up in New Jersey, Barbara Kruger found art confusing and galleries intimidating. And so, to me, it’s not a hierarchical order; it’s not like artists are better than designers, but it is a particular instrumentality, which makes for a difference.BOLLEN: Would you say there also might be a difference in elocution? 436 W.J. It’s the way all markets function, and it’s just become another market.BOLLEN: Finally, about translation. If you look at I never say I do political art. It was A-B-C-D-E. I never had that experience of selling a particular product. I should tell you that my first love has been architecture, ever since I was a little girl. It drives me crazy!BOLLEN: It’s like a new accent has come into existence and is taking over colleges and shopping centers. You’ve revolutionized graphic design.KRUGER: I think that designers have an incredibly broad creative repertoire. Not all the press, but some of it. My work, not so much so, and it’s not by coincidence, because I just feel I relate to that reader who doesn’t know the secret code word.BOLLEN: You’ve already admitted to being interested in fashion and design. I made $75, maybe $80, on each of those works. When you work in magazines, it’s a serial process, it’s about seriality—and so is photography. But in the early ’70s, I was working at the magazine, so I didn’t have artist friends that I went to school with. No more on MOCA. I think the difference was that my photo work with words comes full-on from my job as a magazine designer, not informed by the art world at all.

Was there a shared sense of a project?KRUGER: Not really. Sort of more a combination of theoretical readings.BOLLEN: Were you heavily influenced by the works that artists were making around you in SoHo? And because I worked at a magazine, I really do understand what it’s like to have a short attention span. I don’t know if you read the letter signed by Cathy [Opie] and me. People who are calling themselves artists are people of all colors and persuasions and genders.

They create images of perfection for any number of clients. They solve.

He watched KRUGER: It’s part that and part up talk, which is Midwest.

Interview Magazine: The Crystal Ball of Pop

I was just a designer in the art department and took the subway from Reade Street over here up to Condé Nast when it was at 420 Lex, next to Grand Central. And David Lang, who did I remember going into galleries and seeing this thing called conceptual art Barbara KrugerBOLLEN: Can I ask you about your decision to resign from the board of MOCA in L.A.? But dealers who go to these art fairs frequently can’t sell work to people unless those people can look up the history of the artist and see what the secondary market sales are. Soon, she say, “I realized I could use the fluencies as a designer to make my work,” opting for sans serif fonts and stark color combinations to capture the attention of viewers.By using the familiar design of advertising and commercialism, her works are both accessible and provocative with images and text echoing ads seen on billboards and in magazines. It didn’t say anything. “Your Body Is a Battleground” was originally done as a poster for the 1989 pro-choice march on Washington. But that’s because there’s this bubble that still exists, especially for those of us who’ve been fortunate enough to have won the lottery for 20 minutes. And a lot of respect for the artist as a sort of radical or mystic.KRUGER: For me, the idea of being an artist didn’t have to be tied to a BOLLEN: And so you did work in the design departments of several magazines at Condé Nast.