Barbara Kruger is a key figure for understanding the history of photography around Pictures Generation and Conceptual. This page follows the photographer's place in photography history through Pictures Generation and Conceptual, related photographers, movements, and sources.
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Barbara Kruger turned the visual language of magazines and advertising back against itself. Using found black-and-white images overlaid with blunt red-and-white text, she made works that confront power, identity, gender, and consumerism*1. Pieces such as I Shop Therefore I Am and Your Body is a Battleground became defining works of the Pictures Generation and of feminist image critique*2. Over time her practice expanded from framed works into installations that covered walls, floors, buses, and public spaces. Kruger showed that photography, text, design, and architecture could be fused into a single critical language*5.
A strong single volume on the politics of image and text.
A related photobook that follows the same photographer through a different edit or perspective.
A search link for related photobooks and other available editions.