Evita Rigert The Palimpsest of Reification
Barbara Kruger and Supreme Case Study - Acknowledgements -
„All liberation depends on the consciousness of servitude, and the emergence of this consciousness is always hampered by the predominance of needs and satisfactions which, to a great extent, have become the individual’s own.“
Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man (1964) - Contents -
Evita Rigert The Palimpsest of Reification
Case Study of the everlasting appropriation and re-appropriation of Barbara Kruger and Supreme
Sandberg Instituut, Master Design of Experiences, University of the Underground, 2019 Master Thesis Evita, Eva-Maria Rigert Tutor, Prof. Mijke van der Drift
CONTENTS
1. Preface ...... 4 2. A short Biography of Barbara Kruger ...... 6 2.1 Innovation through Appropriation: The Palimpsest of Barbara Kruger ...... 7 2.2 Social-political art with philosophical incentives ...... 10 3. A short biography of James Jebbia ...... 15 3.1 Commodification of anti-commodity art: The palimpsest of James Jebbias Brand Design Supreme ...... 16 4. The Commodification of Objects: Karl Marx Theory about ‘Commodity fetishism’ in the Age of Capitalism ...... 19 5. The time-specific and discourse-specific Environment of Barbara Kruger and James Jebbia: ‘Commodity fetishism’ turns into Societies Pursuit ...... 23 6.1 Side Case Supreme Bitch: Commodity represents feminism ...... 37 6.2 Side Case Supreme Barletta: The Pure Commodity ...... 41 7. The Commodity we Desire ...... 44 8. Kruger’s art performance at the Performa 17: A philosophical Discussion ...... 50
3 - Preface- 1. Preface
In this case study, I will analyse the exchange between the conceptual artist Barbara Kruger and James
Jebbia, the founder of the skater brand Supreme. Over the last 25 years, through the language of art and the communication of branding and marketing, this has established itself as a real discussion.
This was based on the fact that Jebbia chose a very similar style to Kruger for the branding of his label Supreme and his products. The interesting thing is that Jebbia appropriated Kruger‘s social- critical anti-commodity art for capitalist purposes. Therefore, this discussion has expanded into a philosophical discourse on the constant commodification and appropriation of capitalism through the production of goods. Although the two main actors have never met in person1, they have a constant dialogue with each other. The case study shows that the discussion between them works through objects with Barbara Kruger communicating through art objects and Jebbia through the objects of his retail collection and the brand Supreme. The object, in the capitalist age, defines itself as a commodity and therefore also through the value of the commodity.
This thesis researches the palimpsest of reification2 in the capitalist age in other words the commodification of an object or the “becoming a commodity”, which is based on the time- and discourse-specific context. The term palimpsest3, originally meaning the overwriting of old manuscripts, is used in this thesis to reflect the overwriting of the meaning of objects or things.
An object can be overwritten by human emotions and relationships, such as a wedding ring is an overwriting of social values on an object. Or an object can be overwritten by wishes, desires and fears, so that an object not only fulfils a function, but also acquires a psychological importance, such as money. Palimpsest means that the overwritten always remains visible underneath and thus the object, even if it is overwritten with different meaning, always remains the object itself. Such as a sports-
1 as far as accessible to this research 2 Definition Reification from the verb reify | Definition of reify in English by Oxford Dictionaries. (2019). Retrieved from https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/reify [Accessed 10 Apr. 2019]. 3 palimpsest | Definition of palimpsest in English by Oxford Dictionaries. (2019). Retrieved from https://en.oxforddictiona- ries.com/definition/palimpsest [Accessed 10 Apr. 2019]. Origin: Mid 17th century: via Latin from Greek palimpsēstos, from palin ‘again’ + psēstos ‘rubbed smooth’ 4 - Preface- or a family-car always remains a car. Palimpsest also means that the overwritten exists only in the existence of another, the already written one. As we will see in the analysis of the study, the transfer of meaning to objects is based on historical discourse.
In order to theoretically understand the connection between the main actors or what meaning an object or a commodity has, it is important to understand the discourse- and time-specific connection.
The time-specific context is to be defined on the basis of short biographies and a description of the creation process of the objects; Kruger‘s art and Jebbia‘s label.
The theory of the ‘commodity fetishism’ by Karl Marx serves me to discuss the discourse-specific connection and understand the meaning of goods in the context of the main case example. It defines the basis of this thesis and allows to illustrate the psychological and emotional meaning of an object in capitalism in addition to its pure function. Marx describes in theory the contradictory dialectic of goods. By distinguishing the essence and appearance of a product, we can better understand how products are perceived as autonomous entities that can be used for communication, as Kruger and Jebbia do. Resulting from the main case study, two secondary case studies, Supreme Bitch and Supreme Barletta, will also be analysed to supplement the argumentation and describe how
„commodity fetishism“ has progressed.
The theory in Lauren Berlant‘s book “Cruel Optimism” is used to compare and analyse the meaning of objects in these case studies. It explains the desire of objects and the attachment to objects through the capitalist promises that are attached to them. Kevin Floyd‘s book “Reification of Desire” furthers the research by investigating the reification of social and human relationships that become apparent in the discussion of Kruger and Jebbia by communicating through the power of things and goods.
Both theories build on Marx‘s theory of ‘commodity fetishism’ and complement it in the current discourse of the 21st century.
5 - A short Biography of Barbara Kruger - 2. A short Biography of Barbara Kruger
Barbara Kruger, born 1945 in New Jersey, studied from 1964 at the University of Syracuse and from 1966 at the Parsons School of Design in New York. In the same year when she had started in
Parson, she dropped out of her art education and started working for the Condé Nast publishing house as a picture editor for the magazine Madmoiselle. In only one year she became the head of the picture editing department and also worked as a freelance picture editor. Kruger quickly became an established artist and exhibited at the Whitney Biennale 1973 in New York City.
Barbara Kruger, Exhibition Withney Biennial, 1973
Followed by major international exhibitions like the Documenta 7 in Kassel in 19824 and the Venice
Biennale in 19825 and 20056. She designed the visual branding of the Performa in 2017 in New York
City and was herself part of the exhibition. Kruger currently teaches at the University of California,
Los Angeles7.
4 Kruger, B., Deutsche, R., & Goldstein, A. (1999). Thinking of You (1st ed., p. 32). Museum of Contemporary Art (Los Ange- les): The MIT Press & The Museum of Contemporary Art. 5 En.wikipedia.org. (n.d.). Barbara Kruger. [online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_Kruger [Accessed 15 Apr. 2019]. 6 En.wikipedia.org. (n.d.). Barbara Kruger. [online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_Kruger [Accessed 15 Apr. 2019]. 7 UCLA Department of Art | Faculty. (2019). Retrieved from https://www.art.ucla.edu/faculty/kruger.html [Accessed 15 Apr. 2019]. 6 - Innovation thtough Appropriation: The Palimpsest of Barbara Kruger - 2.1 Innovation through Appropriation: The Palimpsest of Barbara Kruger
Barbara Kruger became known to photographers and the fashion and magazine subculture8 through
her lecturer Marvin Israel9 who was also the director of the Harpers Bazaar. Richard Avedon, Diane
Arbus, Robert Frank, Lee Freilander Larry Rivers, Andy Warhole, Henri Cartier-Brenson and Walker
Evans all featured in this magazine. Israel also supported young fashion photographers like James
Moore.
Marvin Israel & Diane Arbus in 1971, Photo by student Cosmos Sarchiapone / Harpers Bazaar under the Direction of Marvin Israel, Photographie by James Moore, 1966
Kruger‘s work is also inspired by the sculptor and textile artist Magdalena Abakanowicz10, known
for her large-format textile wall works. Another source of inspiration were photomontage artists who
created antifascist or feminist works in pre-war Germany. These included John Heartfield11, a pioneer at
the interface between art and media. He is regarded as the inventor of political photomontage. Hannah
Höch12, a German painter, graphic- and collage-artist of the art movement Dadaism, was also a source
of inspiration.
8 Linker, K. (1990). Love for sale (p. 13). New York: Abrams. 9 Marvin Israel, born 1924, New York, USA - 1984, Texas, USA 10 Magdalena Abakanowicz, born 1930, Raszyn-Falenty, Poland – 2017, Warschau, Poland 11 John Heartfield, born 1891 Schmargendorf, Germany – 1968, Ostberlin, Germany 12 Hannah Höch, born 1889 Gotha, Germany - 1978 West-Berlin, Germany
7 Magdalena Abakanowicz, Material Wool Cotton Sisal Horsehair, 1965 / John Heartfield, Collage, 1933 / Hannah Höch, The Beautiful Girl, 1920
Kruger was particularly influenced by Russian Constructivism, a style that was active in Russia from
1913 to 1940. This movement had based its ideas on the Russian style called Suprematism13 which was
founded by the artist Kasimir Malewitsch14, who created it with the guiding principle “the supremacy
of pure feeling in creative art”15. In his opinion, this was best represented by the square16. Suprematism,
derived from the old Latin word supremus in the sense of “the highest”, “that is above”.
Red Square (1915), State Russian Museum in St. Petersburg
Kasimir Malewitsch: Eight Rectangles (1915), Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam
The posters of Russian Constructivism, which emerged later from the art movement, served the
communist practice for social purposes. The artists saw themselves as official representatives of
the political functionaries. Their goal was to bring communist ideas and art to the people through
propaganda. The constructivists created works that positioned the viewer as active observer to
revolutionize society, through art as with Gustav Klutsis‘17 poster which calls for political action.
Russian Constructivism as an aesthetic-artistic element reflected the political concepts of the time.
13 What influence did suprematism have on constructivism?. (2019). Retrieved from https://www.quora.com/What-influen- ce-did-suprematism-have-on-constructivism [Accessed 15 Mar. 2019]. 14 Kasimir Malewitsch, born 1878, Kiew, Ukraine - 1935, Leningrad, Russland 15 En.wikiquote.org. (n.d.). Suprematism - Wikiquote. [online] Available at: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Suprematism [Acces- sed 15 Apr. 2019]. 16 Why Supreme’s (Mis)Appropriation of Barbara Kruger’s Art Matters More Than Ever - Supreme Barbara Kruger. (2019). Retrieved from https://www.heroine.com/the-editorial/supreme-barbara-kruger [Accessed 15 Mar. 2019]. 17 Gustav Klutsis born 1895, Koni Parish, Lativa - 1938, Moscow Russia 8 Gustav Kluits, “Everyone must vote in the Election of Soviets”, 1930 / Aleksandr Rodchenko, “Books”, 1924, The Advertisement Poster for the Lengiz Publishing House
Barbara Kruger came to her characteristic social-critical and political style at the end of the 70s and
beginning of the 80s. In the following chapter, the aspect of social criticism and the political will be
explained by analysing of two well-known works. Kruger‘s style can be easily understood from the
sources of inspiration detailed above and the various artists with whom she came into contact with
through her connection with Marvin Israel. She appropriated existing pictures and graphics and used
the banner aesthetic of magazines and advertisement for her lettering. Her collages use the visual
language of existing commercial mass media, which has been slightly altered by her own technique,
similar to Höch and Heartfield. The inspiration for the combination of image and text came, among
other things, from Russian Constructivism. The image is usually combined with capitalized, concise
formulations or word-image juxtapositions, surrounded by a red box18. In most of her works she uses
the white Futura Bold Italic, an open source font originally created by Paul Renner19 in 1927.
By appropriation, Kruger‘s art is a palimpsest. She overwrites it with her own artistic style, thereby
creating new meaning and innovation through the palimpsest.
18 Süddeutsche.de GmbH, G. (2017). Land der Unsicherheit. Retrieved from https://www.sueddeutsche.de/kultur/grossfor- mat-land-der-unsicherheit-1.3707883 [Accessed 15 Mar. 2019]. 19 Paul Renner, born 1878 Wernigerode, Germany - 1956 Hödingen, Germany 9 - Social-political art with philosophical incentives - 2.2 Social-political art with philosophical incentives
In Barbara Kruger‘s art, image and text together form an assemblage that is apparently perceived and quoted as socio-critical or political critique. Like the artists of Russian Constructivism, she builds her art on a similar socio-critical and political concept in order to make the viewer an active observer of the artwork. In this chapter, two well-known works by Kruger are analysed in more detail in order to illustrate their characteristic socio-critical and political style as well as their impact.
This typical style can be expressed by Lindsey Dorr-Niro‘s description of Kruger‘s work, herself an artist and educator:
«Since she began working in this particular vein in the 1980’s, which was not
only responding to rampant global consumerism (of images, goods, bodies)
but also a rapidly inflating art market, Kruger has attempted to employ the
mechanisms and signifiers of successful advertising strategies to more critical
and subversive ends. Over the years, her appropriative strategy and she herself
however have become a kind of brand in the process.»20
Barbara Kruger: Untitled (“I shop therfore I am”), 281,9 x 287cm, 1987
One of her most famous works is Untitled „I shop therfore I am“ from 1987, a black-and-white photograph of a male hand holding a red box with the white inscription „I shop therefore I am“ in the font Futura Bold Italic. The artwork is a large-format silkscreen, originally installed in a gallery room. Lindsey Dorr-Niro interprets the content of the work:
20 Dorr-Niro, L. (2019). Lindsey Dorr-Niro. Retrieved from http://www.lindseydorrniro.com/ [Accessed 15 Mar. 2019]. 10 - Social-political art with philosophical incentives -
“…I think it distills Kruger’s core subjects (consumption, gender, identity,
the body, perception, mind) and also as a way of dissecting and illuminating
the many layers of appropriation that Kruger employs. So there is the
photograph, which again appears somewhat timeless though was perhaps taken
out of an ad from a 1950’s magazine advertising to women. Then, in place of
and blocking out what might have been in the hand, we see an image also
referencing the form of a tag that reads “I Shop Therefore I am” which is,
of course, a reference to Descartes’ famous and widely misunderstood
declaration “I think therefore I am”.”21
It is important here to understand what Dorr-Niro points to by referring to René Descartes‘22 well-known and often misunderstood phrase „I think, therefore I am“23. «Descartes observes that the cogito result is known only from the fact that it is “clearly and distinctly” perceived by the intellect.
Hence, he sets up clear and distinct intellectual perception, independent of the senses, as the mark of truth.»24. This sentence became a fundamental element of Western philosophy, pretending to form a secure basis for knowledge facing radical doubts. While other knowledge could be a fantasy, a deception or a mistake, Descartes claimed that the act of doubting one‘s own existence - at least - served as proof of the reality of one‘s own mind; there must be a right to think - in this case the self
- for there to be a thought.
The sentence was misunderstood because it is the epistemological and metaphysical statement that his subjective experience of his own consciousness is proof that one thing he can know for sure is that he himself exists in some form. His perceptions, beliefs, and memories could all be delusions. But the fact that he can entertain these speculations is proof that a cognitive entity exists. So he didn‘t say it 21 Dorr-Niro, L. (2019). Lindsey Dorr-Niro. Retrieved from http://www.lindseydorrniro.com/ [Accessed 15 Mar. 2019]. 22 René Descartes, born 1596, La Haye en Touraine, France – 1650, Stockholm, Sweden 23 „Cognito ergo sum“, actually in Latin „ego cognito, ergo sum“, is the first principle of the philosopher Rene Descartes, which he formulated in his work Meditationes de prima philosophia (1641) after radical doubts about his own cognitive faculty. 24 René Descartes (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). (2008). Retrieved from https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/descartes [Accessed 28 Mar. 2019]. 11 - Social-political art with philosophical incentives - was me, so I think. If for Descartes it is the act of doubt that makes our existence conscious, Barbara
Kruger seems to say that in our age of unbridled consumption it is our ability to consume that has served us as proof of the reality of our own mind and therefore gives us identity. It uses the Cartesian proposal that human existence should now be measured by its ability to consume goods.
The sentence „I shop therefore I am“ has several different possibilities of interpretation. On the one hand, the sentence can be interpreted sociologically to mean that Kruger indicates that it is no longer the thinking of each individual that constitutes his existence, and thus is the philosophical principle of human beings, but rather consumption. Consumerism is what constitutes the existence of the individual and thus is what human beings fundamentally have in common. This manifests itself on several levels: in human relationships, e.g. the revealing of love, is shown by spending money; in cultural products that are consumed as experiences; in work, we work to be able to afford more.
The sentence can also be interpreted as Kruger philosophically questioning and drawing attention to market psychology, which manipulates people and drives them to consume. People long for an identity and to be part of a social group. The creation of this feeling of identity is at the heart of contemporary advertising. By shopping, people confirm their own purpose for who they want to be, and thus buy to be. With her work Kruger points out that consumption is one of the most important aspects of life and shapes people.
Another important work is Untitled („Your body is a battleground“), which was produced for the
1989 Women’s March in Washington25 after a series of anti-abortion laws came into force. These began to undermine Roe v. Wade26. The work, a photographic Silk Screen poster print, depicts a female face from an advertising model that is vertically split into a negative and a positive half. It seems as if Barbara Kruger, by splitting her face, is addressing the objectified standard of symmetry that has been applied to female beauty by media and advertising that determines the social view of
25 Caldwell, E. (2016). The History of „Your Body Is A Battleground“ | JSTOR Daily. [online] JSTOR Daily. Available at: https://daily.jstor.org/the-history-your-body-is-a-battleground/ [Accessed 10 Apr. 2019]. 26 In 1989‘s Webster v. Reproductive Health Services, Chief Justice Rehnquist, writing for the Court, declined to explicitly 12 - Social-political art with philosophical incentives - beauty. Three red boxes are placed on it in the middle of the picture. In white Futura Bold Italic it says „Your body is a battleground“. Kruger addresses the viewer, here specifically the female viewer, directly by using the possessive pronoun “your”, through which one feels directly addressed. With the term “battleground” Kruger referred to the political battle in which women are objectified. The rights of women to decide about their bodies are made into political decisions. This calls into question the woman‘s right to control her own body.
Untitled, (“Your body is a battleground”), 284,5 x 284,5cm, 1989
These works show that Kruger‘s art raises philosophical, socio-critical, and political questions. Her art thereby becomes socio-critical and political art oriented to the methods of the mass media and advertising.
“The work - be it a painting, a billboard, or a Metro Card, by highlighting
our mindless, disembodied, and disempowered movement through the world,
then potentially acts as a call for more critical observation in and of the world.”27
Exhibiting not exclusively in galleries, her work is based on the same tools as corporations. She exhibits her work in public spaces, on billboards, metro cards or in department stores and has her
overrule Roe, because „none of the challenged provisions of the Missouri Act properly before us conflict with the Constitution. In this case, the Court upheld several abortion restrictions, and modified the Roe trimester framework. Roe v. Wade. (2019). Retrieved from https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roe_v._Wade [Accessed 10 Apr. 2019]. 27 Dorr-Niro, L. (2019). Lindsey Dorr-Niro. Retrieved from http://www.lindseydorrniro.com/ [Accessed 15 Mar. 2019]. 13 - Social-political art with philosophical incentives - works printed on T-shirts, cups and shopping bags28. As Dorr-Niro describes her art, it hits the viewer precisely in the “mindless, disembodied, and disempowered movement through the world” and stimulates a philosophical incentive and questioning which leads to a “critical observation in and of the world”.
28 Linker, K. (1990). Love for sale (p. 12). New York: Abrams. 14 - A short biography of James Jebbia - 3. A short biography of James Jebbia
Supreme is a Skater brand of the 1990s. It was founded in 1994 in New York city by British-emigré
James Jebbia, born in 1963. Jebbia began his career in 1983 in Soho, New York, where he worked in a skater shop called Parachute. In 1989, Jebbia opened its first retail company, Uninon NYC, with a mix of English brands29. In 1994, Jebbia founded the skateboard shop and apparel brand Supreme and opened its first store on Lafayette Street in central Manhattan.
James Jebbia infront of his Supreme Store in 1994, Unknown Photographer
Today, the brand has 11 locations worldwide in Los Angeles, London, Paris, New York and Japan.
Jebbia started with a simple retail background and has become a well-established business man in the skateboard industry. James Jebbia‘s assets were estimated at $40 million in 201230.
29 James Jebbiais One of the 500 People Shaping the Global Fashion Industry. (2019). Retrieved from https://www.busines- soffashion.com/community/people/james-jebbia [Accessed 10 Apr. 2019]. 30 Holmes, D. (2018). Supreme Brand Report [Ebook]. 12th February 2018: Demi Holmes. Retrieved from https://issuu.com/ demiholmess/docs/supreme_report_final_pdf1_print [Accessed 15 Mar. 2019]. 15 Commodification of anti-commodity art The palimpsest of James Jebbias Brand Design Supreme 3.1 Commodification of anti-commodity art: The palimpsest of James Jebbias Brand Design Supreme
The logo of the Supreme brand seems to be very close to Kruger‘s artistic handwriting. Since James
Jebbia has been very reticent from the beginning about the design process of his brand and the
creation of the logo to the press31, we do not know whether Jebbia deliberately copied Kruger. Or
whether Kruger‘s art style was ubiquitously known in New York. Nevertheless, one can compare the
two styles very well by the cover design of the book “Remote Control” by Kruger, which was published
in September 1993 as hardcover and the logo of Supreme, which was presented for the first time in
April 1994 at the Supreme Store opening.
Text from Barbara Krugers Book “Remote Control”, released as a Hardcover in 1993 / Supreme Logo, by James Jebbia in 1994
Like Kruger, Jebbia used the red box with a white lettering. Both fonts are Futura. The only difference
is the style of the font. He uses Heavy Oblique, not like Kruger Bold Italic. Jebbias logo looks modern
through the digital clear lines and rich colors. Kruger‘s title, on the other hand, works with an analog
effect. Through the photographed or scanned screen print you can see the structure and the colors
are a bit dirtier and similar to newspaper printing. Another interesting point that indicates that Jebbia
was aware of Kruger‘s artistic origins is the name of his label: Supreme. All he said was, “Hey, that‘s a
cool name for a store”32. The adjective supreme is used as a superlative and is defined by the Oxford
Dictionary as “highest rank or authority” or “very great or the greatest”. The name of the label strongly
reminds of the term „Suprematism“, the art movement from which Russian Constructivism had its
ideas and from which Kruger was again inspired.
31 O’Brien, G. (2009). James Jebbia is Supreme - Interview Magazine. Retrieved from https://www.interviewmagazine.com/ fashion/james-jebbia-is-supreme [Accessed 15 Mar. 2019]. 32 O’Brien, G. (2009). James Jebbia is Supreme - Interview Magazine. Retrieved from https://www.interviewmagazine.com/ fashion/james-jebbia-is-supreme [Accessed 15 Mar. 2019]. 16 Commodification of anti-commodity art The palimpsest of James Jebbias Brand Design Supreme As already described, much of Kruger‘s art consists of juxtaposing text and appropriated images that
are accessible to the public. Supreme has been using the same technique from the very beginning. This
can be seen in the first T-shirt design, a still from the 1976 Martin Scorsese film “Taxi Driver” with
Robert Deniro in the lead role, labelled by the inscription “Supreme”. A second example is the 1994
guerilla campaign, where Supreme stickers with the red and white box logo were affixed to the Calvin
Klein33 advertisement, which featured Kate Moss in underwear. With this action Supreme became
known in the media.
First supreme T-Shirt 1994, signed by 100 Skateboarders / Kate Moss Advertisement by Calvin Klein with the added Supreme Sticker signed by James Jebbia
Jebbia uses the same methods as Kruger, but uses them for commercial purposes. This can be
recognized by the fact that Supreme does not cooperate with underground subcultures of the skater
industry, but successfully collaborated with high fashion brands such as Louis Vuitton and Comme
de Garcon or market-leading sports brands such as Nike or North Face. Supreme also collaborated
successfully with other well-known brands from distant fields, such as Levis, the suitcase brand
Rimowa and the exclusive Japanese brand Visvim. Jebbia worked with artists like Damien Hirst, one
of the richest artists in the world, George Condo, and David Lynch. Even a collaboration with Kermit
the Frog34 was not missed by the businessman. These collaborations show that Supreme collaborates
for the purely capitalist gain. There is no red thread or message, because the collaboration partners
are too different and the output hardly varies. Mostly the collections do not differ much than the
33 A Supreme History. (2014). Retrieved from https://wrldwde.wordpress.com/2014/08/29/a-supreme-history/ [Accessed 15 Mar. 2019]. 34 Ultimate Supreme Collaboration List. (2019). Retrieved from https://www.authenticsupreme.com/supreme-collaborati- on-list [Accessed 15 Mar. 2019]. 17 Commodification of anti-commodity art The palimpsest of James Jebbias Brand Design Supreme regular basic clothing pieces, except with a varying print. No critical attitude is conveyed at all, since
the collaboration partners are mostly male-dominated labels or market leaders in their field. Supreme
also collaborated repeatedly with Terry Richardson, a controversial photographer accused of sexual
abuse who produced calendar photos in which women were portrayed pornographically through
manipulation.
Supreme Kollaboration with Louis Vuitton 2017 / Supreme Collaboration with Kermit the Frog 2008 / Supreme limited Edition Calendar, shot by Terry Richardson 2002
In terms of quality, the retail clothing is nothing special. It is a mass produced product, simple to
manufacture, communal patterns on simple Hoddies, T-shirts and accessories such as caps and belts.
Supreme also sells limited editions, creating an extremely big media and social media hype with
these new releases. People camp for days before in front of the stores and everything is sold out in no
time35. The selling price of the Louis Vuitton hoody, for example is $860 and can be sold for up to
$25,000 on Ebay auctions. This is given here to illustrate the commercial appeal and popularity of
Supreme.
Jebbia appropriates the strategy of Kruger‘s anti-commodity-art for capitalist purposes. In contrast
to Kruger, he uses these methods neither for the subversive infiltration of the advertising industry
nor for social or political criticism. Jebbias Palimpsest, the overwriting or appropriation of the
“approppriative strategy”, i.e. the re-appropriation of Kruger‘s anti-commodity art, does not serve to
create meaning or innovation, but rather for capitalist commodification, i.e. the creation of goods.
35 Team, H., Fu, J., Li, N., & Miao, A. (2017). Here’s How You Buy Supreme in 2017. Retrieved from https://hypebeast. com/2017/7/buying-supreme-queues [Accessed 11 Apr. 2019]. 18 The Commodification of Objects: Karl Marx Theory about Commodity fetishism 4. The Commodification of Objects: Karl Marx Theory about ‘Commodity fetishism’ in the Age of Capitalism
Since Kruger and Supreme entertain themselves through the medium of the commodity, as in their case artworks and clothing, it is important to theoretically define their value in addition to their pure function. Also for the emergence of the side-case-example, Supreme Barletta and Supreme Bitch, it is important for the argument to define to what extent the pure function of the object is governed by the capitalistic value.
The capitalist mode of production presents itself as an immense accumulation of goods. The theory of ‘commodity fetishism’ by Karl Marx has its origin in the first chapter “Commodities” of the book
“Capital” and serves as a basis in this text to understand that the human relation to an object is much more of a relation to commodity. According to Marx, the form of the product and its production- value-relationship has absolutely no connection with the natural physical nature of a product:
“The commodity-form, and the value-relation of the products of labour
within which it appears, have absolutely no connection with the physical
nature of the commodity and the material relations arising out of this.
It is nothing but the definite social relation between men themselves
which assumes here, for them, the fantastic form of a relation between
things.”36
Karl Marx‘s theory ‘commodity fetishism’ describes the perception of the social relations involved in production not as relations between people, but as economic relations between the money and goods traded in the market. ‘Commodity fetishism’ transforms the subjective, abstract aspects of
36 Marx, K. (2019). Capital [Ebook] (p. 48). Retrieved from https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/pdf/ Capital-Volume-I.pdf [Accessed 15 Mar. 2019]. 19 The Commodification of Objects: Karl Marx Theory about Commodity fetishism economic value into objective, real things that people believe have intrinsic value. Karl Marx describes
‘commodity fetishism’ as an organic appendage of capitalism. He adopted the concept of the fetish from anthropology, where he refers to a holy or symbolic object that, according to the believers, have supernatural power.
“In order, therefore, to find an analogy we must take flight into the misty
realm of religion. There the products of the human brain appear as
autonomous figures endowed with a life of their own, which enter into
relations both with each other and with the human race. So it is in the
world of commodities with the products of men‘s hands. I call this the
fetishism which attaches itself to the products of labour as soon as they
are produced as commodities, and is therefore inseparable from the
production of commodities.”37
‘Commodity fetishism’ can also be understood in terms of social relations. On the one hand, neither the producer nor the consumer has a necessary or complete relationship with the other. On the other hand, relations between people are determined by goods, because they are an expression of our social system. Marx calls this a social system of generalized commodity production, better known as capitalism.
In his theory, Marx describes the contradictory dialectic of goods. According to Marx the contradiction manifests itself in the essence and in the appearance of the goods. The essence refers to the social production relationship of the workers, i.e. the working class, which is exploited to produce utility values. The appearance of a product refers to its appearance on the market, e.g. the promotion of the product through advertising or branding. Between the essence and the appearance of a product
37 Marx, K. (2019). Capital [Ebook] (p. 48). Retrieved from https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/ download/pdf/Capital-Volume-I.pdf, [Accessed 15 Mar. 2019]. 20 The Commodification of Objects: Karl Marx Theory about Commodity fetishism emerges a contradictory reference to the product itself. The basis, the essence, is the exploitation of workers by capital, because labour creates wealth. A commodity is a material product of human labor, produced under real conditions. It is produced from the elements of nature, mostly through the collective labor process of production. Through the appearance and manifestation in the world market the workers are alienated from their own work products. The consumer only sees the material object and its surface, but rarely the production process of utility values and products on the market.
The process of production is perceived by the consumer as a massively modernized abstract process and therefore goods become a kind of autonomous source. The consequence is that the goods control society and therefore also the workers. One‘s own work has become a commodity, a service. The worker is transformed into an object that has to produce more work instead of using human labor for its own needs to produce its own desires.
Marx also compares this process with faith in God. According to Marx it is the ideologies of the ruling class that maintain the system of exploitation. He compares this with religion: God is man‘s creation. According to religion, man worships his own creation, that is, God. Religion serves as a requisite for exploitative relationships justified by the relationship to its own mysticism, its own creation. Capitalism justifies the relationship of exchange created by human beings through the production of goods. The true relationship of exploitation is hidden. We justify this by the whole ideology of freedom of exchange, the open market, free trade.
‘Commodity fetishism’ is an important concept in Marxist and so-called post-Marxist theory and serves as a basis for understanding the meaning of commodities. ‘Commodity fetishism’ is an important concept in Marxist and so-called post-Marxist theory. In this text it serves as a basis for us to understand the meaning of goods. As we can see in the example of the main case of Kruger and Jebbia, the discussion consists literally through the medium of the commodity. This shows that goods are becoming more and more important for social relations in several areas of life. This importance of commodities is irrational, as it fetishes them and thus creates a distorted perception
21 The Commodification of Objects: Karl Marx Theory about Commodity fetishism which then defines the social interaction through these products. As Marx pointed out, it is not the real relationships of a commodity, such as collective labour and the production process, that connect the worker and the consumer. Rather the consumer fetishes the goods himself. The products appear in the human brain as autonomous entities with their own lives, which relate to each other and to the human being and thus serve for communication. The ‘Commodity fetishism’ shows the real relations of the production capitalism and is at the same time the condition which maintains the system.
In the context of this research ‘Commodity fetishism’ will also serve as a theoretical basis for the theories by Herbert Marcuse, Lauren Berlant and Kevin Floyd, who analyses György Lukác‘s concept of reification.
22 The time-specific and discourse-specific Environment of Barbara Kruger and James Jebbia 5. The time-specific and discourse-specific Environment of Barbara Kruger and James Jebbia: ‘Commodity fetishism’ turns into Societies Pursuit
To analyse the palimpsest of Barbara Kruger, who creates innovation by appropriating and overwriting things, and the palimpsest of James Jebbia, who overwrites anti-commodity art for capitalist purposes and thereby commodifies, it is important to understand and compare the environment of their generations and the theoretical background. In this chapter, we analyse the circumstances and concerns of Barbara Kruger and her generation, as well as Jebbia‘s generation that builds upon that context. This helps to understand the relation to the commodity that has developed in the ever changing capitalist system. The time-specific theories of Herbert Marcuse and Jean Baudrillard are analysed to support the argument.
Kruger‘s generation was shaped by the idea of communism. As Marx wrote in his theory of
‘commodity fetishism’, the social value of a commodity, which over the last century was further reinforced by the growth of the economy and the emergence of public relations, today appears almost entirely as an intrinsic value, i.e. as a natural property of the commodity itself. Through the development of market psychology, consumption increasingly determined the identity and is therefore ideologically legitimized. Kruger‘s generation strongly criticizes this process of legitimization. This chapter is intended to elaborate on the methods that Kruger uses to appropriate corporate strategies as her tactic, and to describe the concept of “beat the system with its own weapons” in more detail.
James Jebbia‘s generation, also known as “Generation X”38, are children of the time of social value change. Born almost 20 years after Kruger, they experienced the fall of the Berlin Wall and grew up with a post-communist attitude. This gave new boost to capitalism, which would become its full flourishing. The time of Jebbia and its initial success in the 90s was characterized by the
38 Generation X. (2019). Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_X [Accessed 10 Apr. 2019]. 23 The time-specific and discourse-specific Environment of Barbara Kruger and James Jebbia technological age, including the commercial boom of the Internet. Social relations and individuality were increasingly expressed through commodities and thus determined by capitalism. Therefore, it is important for this case study of Barbara Kruger and Supreme to also analyse the time- and discourse- specific context more precisely.
Kruger grew up in the United States of America, the birthplace of capitalist mass consumption, which had a strong influence on 20th century society and the individual as well as our relationship with goods right up until today. One important person who strongly influenced this process was Edward
Bernays39, the founder of Public Relation40. He worked for the US government in war propaganda.
In 1917, the year of war, he campaigned under the slogan: “Make the world safe for democracy.”41. In the post-war years, he tried to use the effectiveness of propaganda as a means of controlling buying behaviour and forming political opinion in a mass democracy even in peacetime. To avoid the incriminating term propaganda42 he called his approach public relations. Bernays used the theories of his uncle Sigmund Freud43, to explain human behaviour by dividing the psyche into the conscious, the subconscious and the unconscious. Bernays commercialized Sigmund Freud‘s legacy in the USA and at the same time applied it to develop the theory of public relation. He felt that a new elite had to be formed to manage the confused herd who were easily led by their drives and desires. This would be done through psychological measures:
«If we understand the mechanism and motives of the group mind, is it
not possible to control and regiment the masses according to our will
without their knowing it?»44
39 Edward Bernays, born 1891, Vienna, Austria - 1995, New York, USA 40 The following informations about the History of Public Relation and the influence of the Freud family are from the BBC documentation: Curtis, A. (2002). The Century of Self [Film]. UK: BBC. 41 Tribelhorn, M. (2018). Meister der Manipulation – wie Edward Bernays mit raffinierter PR-Arbeit unsere Konsumkultur veränderte | NZZ. Retrieved from https://www.nzz.ch/gesellschaft/der-heimliche-verfuehrer-ld.1403103 [Accessed 12 Feb. 2019]. 42 Bernays, E. (2009). Propaganda (p. 19). Freiburg im Breisgau: Orange Press. 43 Sigmund Freud, born 1856, Freiberg, Czech Republic -1939, London, UK 44 Bernays, E. (2009). Propaganda (p. 36). Freiburg im Breisgau: Orange Press. 24 The time-specific and discourse-specific Environment of Barbara Kruger and James Jebbia Bernays has worked for a variety of companies, including Procter & Gamble, British American
Tobacco, General Electric Motors and United Fruit Company, many of which continue to have a major impact on business and politics. In the 1930s Bernays was commissioned by British American
Tobacco as Public Relation manager to expand the sales market. At that time it was not common for women to smoke in public, so the action of smoking was associated with masculinity and dominance.
Bernays commissioned the psychoanalyst Abraham Brill45, a student of Sigmund Freud, who analysed that cigarettes represent for women “torches of freedom” because their female desires were increasingly suppressed by their role in the modern world. He came to the psychological interpretation that cigarettes represented the woman‘s penis. Bernays used the women‘s liberation movement and commissioned women, dressed as suffragettes, to proclaim cigarettes as “Torches of Freedom” at the
Easter Sunday Parade of 1929. The advertising campaign was well received by the media and Bernays helped to make smoking socially acceptable for women. His method appealed to the subconscious desires of individuals and thus controlled the consumption of the masses.
The Austrian-American psychoanalyst and pioneer of market psychology Ernest Dichter46 followed in
Bernays footprints with the invention of group therapy sessions, as he called it “focus groups”, today known as market research or consumer survevs, commonly known as market psychology. The method of focus groups that Dichter used for his research was in fact revolutionary in the field of market psychology because it negated the quantitative research and statistics and instead focused on the emotional and irrational aspects which were psychologically based. By asking meaningful questions to the individual, Dichter was able to gain a better understanding of consumer desires and needs through the reactions of the participants47. By recording and analysing the responses of the participants he began to see a pattern in the reactions given and from this he could formulate his theories. His theory was that humans are irrational beings with irrational feelings. People follow unconscious buying
45 Adam Brill, born 1874, Kańczuga, Austria - 1948, New York, USA 46 Ernest Dichter, born 1907, Vienna, Austria - 1991, New York, USA 47 Furst, R. (2015). “To Thy Own Self Be True”: Ernest Dichter &The American 1950s [Ebook] (p. 37). Columbia University New York: Rachel C. Furst. Retrieved from https://history.barnard.edu/sites/default/files/rachel_furst_thesis-_ernest_dichter_fi- nal.pdf [Accessed 14 Feb. 2019]. 25 The time-specific and discourse-specific Environment of Barbara Kruger and James Jebbia motivations that are sexually, psychologically and status-demanding or recognition-based. He called this unconscious buying motivation “The secret self of the consumer”48. The aim of his group therapy, which links people‘s hidden psychological desires associated with products, is to remove the barrier of guilt. The core idea of motivational research was that the environment could be used to strengthen human personality through the power of products. He analysed the inner desire of an individual to achieve a common identity with the people around them as a Strategy of Desire49, a strategy of creating a stable society.
Dichter worked as marketer for large corporations in the cosmetics and food industries and helped them to create effective advertisements. The company Betty Cracker, for example, commissioned
Dichter because the convenience products surprisingly did not appeal to housewives. In his focus group, Dichter analysed that the cake mixes effectively carried out the culinary work that women perceived as their moral, social and emotional responsibility. He, as a psychologist and marketing expert, established the “egg theory” that women would feel they had better fulfilled their cooking tasks if they could add an egg to the mixture. Thus removing the barrier of guilt. The “egg theory” is still part of this marketing strategy today.
Kruger‘s generation, which included the student movement of the 60s / 70s in the USA, criticized the conscious, intelligent and thus systematic manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses through advertising. There were protests, whether by force, such as the terrorist group “The
Weathermen”50, or by protests at universities, such as the Columbia University protests of 1968.
An important figure of this time was Hebert Marcuse. He had a critical voice towards the process of capitalization and became the father figure of the student movement. Marcuse was part of the
Frankfurt School51, a group of philosophers and scientists who made significant contributions in the 48 The following informations about the History of Public Relation and the influence of the Freud family are from the BBC documentation: Curtis, A. (2002). The Century of Self [Film]. UK: BBC. 49 Dichter, E. (2017). Strategy of Desire. New York: Taylor and Francis. 50 The following informations about the History of Public Relation and the influence of the Freud family are from the BBC documentation: Curtis, A. (2002). The Century of Self [Film]. UK: BBC. 51 Frankfurt School. (2019). Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankfurt_School [Accessed 15 Feb. 2019]. 26 The time-specific and discourse-specific Environment of Barbara Kruger and James Jebbia fields of ideological criticism. They examined the possibility of rational action by human subjects and thus criticized Freud‘s theory that the individual is determined by his unconscious and subconscious.
The studies by Marcuse and the Frankfurt School criticized capitalism, which suppressed the preconditions of a critical, revolutionary consciousness.
Marcuse recognized, through Marx‘s theory among others, that the individual is subject to the ideology of the capitalist system. He writes in his theory about the manipulation of the individual by the suggestive power of consumer advertising52. He criticizes the manipulation that was promoted by
Edward Bernays and Ernest Dichter, among others, to influence the masses through consumption.
In his book “One Dimensional Man” from 1964, he dealt theoretically with the manipulation by market psychology. Through his psychology studies he recognized the control and suppression of the masses by the “social powers”, by which he points to systematic manipulation. These “social powers” are determined by people who have power because of their high positions in male-dominated corporations or in politics. He called this tactic for controlling the masses through consumption the satisfaction of the “false” needs that seem gratifying to the individual, but in reality inhibit and incapacitate the individual to recognize or even defend himself.
“We may distinguish both true and false needs. “False” are those which are
superimposed upon the individual by particular social interests in his
repression: the needs which perpetuate toil, aggressiveness, misery, and
injustice. Their satisfaction might be most gratifying to the individual, but
this happiness is not a condition which has to be maintained and protected
if it serves to arrest the development of the ability (his own and others) to
recognize the disease of the whole and grasp the chances of curing the disease.
The result then is euphoria in unhappiness. Most of the prevailing needs to
52 Marcuse, H. (2014). Der Eindimensionale Mensch (p. 110). Springe: zu Klampen. 27 The time-specific and discourse-specific Environment of Barbara Kruger and James Jebbia relax, to have fun, to behave and consume in accordance with the
advertisements, to love and hate what others love and hate, belong to this
category of false needs. Such needs have a societal content and function
which are determined by external powers over which the individual has
no control…“53
These “false needs” are addressed by advertising and satisfied by consumption. They fulfil a social function and do not serve the happiness of the individual, but the preservation of the status quo.
Marcuse‘s work clearly shows how he builds on Marx‘s ‘commodity fetishism’ theory, because these needs can only be satisfied if the consumed object, the commodity, has an emotional or social meaning that is alienated from the production of goods. Capitalism justifies and legitimizes the system of exploitation, among other things by satisfying “false needs”.
The true relationship of exploitation is hidden by ‘commodity fetishism’ and the ideology of freedom of exchange, free trade. Marcuse describes freedom as a powerful instrument of authority. The freedom of the individual is measured by the parameters of the system, i.e. the capitalist system, and is thus only a choice of circumstances subject to the ideologies of the ruling class.
Since freedom and individuality are not detached, but instrumentalized and externally determined by the “social powers”, the individual is subject to social control in its function and is thus alienated.
If the individual is subject to the ideology of the capitalist system, this subordination must be rationalized and legitimized by the system. On the one hand, the increased standard of living is rationalised by the increased productivity of the economic, political and cultural enterprise, which is created by the scientific management and division of labour. On the other hand, it must be based on a rational pattern of thought and behaviour which justifies and even absolves the destructive and cruel traits of this company.
53 Marcuse, H. (2014). Der Eindimensionale Mensch (p. 25). Springe: zu Klampen. 28 The time-specific and discourse-specific Environment of Barbara Kruger and James Jebbia “Society reproduced itself in a growing technical ensemble of things and
relations which included the technical utilization of men - in other words,
the struggle for existence and the exploitation of man and nature
became ever more scientific and rational.”54
Living in New York at the time of resistance and protest, Barbara Kruger‘s studies brought her into contact with the system-critical theories and protests of the student movement in politically active left circles. Therefore, it belonged to their consciousness and that of their generation to actively defend themselves against the manipulation of the individual by capitalist-oriented corporations and their instrumentalization of masses through the suggestive power of consumer advertising, and to protest against the transformation of society into a consumer society. Kruger‘s art addresses precisely this predominant society based on desires and the emergence of a consciousness guided by needs and satisfactions. With her art, she criticizes the instrumentalization of the individual through market psychology and thus the indoctrination of the masses through consumption. Many of her works are aimed directly at the consuming masses. The picture Untitled („Don`t be a jerk“) from 1984, for example, shows a mass of people printed in black and white with the inscription „Don`t be a jerk“. She chooses the singular form “a jerk” and not “jerks”. It thus appeals to the rationality of the individual in the masses. Just as Marcuse and the Frankfurt School insisted on the individual and his rationality not to be seduced into mass consumption by the manipulation of consumer advertising. In the works Untitled („Money can buy you love“) from 1985 and Untitled („Buy me
I‘ll change your life“) from 1984, Kruger addresses the method of satisfying “false needs”. The use of market psychology creates false needs, which in return are satisfied by consumption. These “false needs” are linked to emotions such as love or the promise of a better life through consumption. As we see in the 1984 painting Untitled („You are not yourself“), which shows the reflection of a female face in a broken mirror, which is thereby distorted, Kruger points out that consumption gives us a
54 Marcuse, H. (2014). Der Eindimensionale Mensch (p. 161). Springe: zu Klampen. 29 The time-specific and discourse-specific Environment of Barbara Kruger and James Jebbia distorted perception of ourselves and what we desire. This distortion of desire goes hand in hand with
the theory of ‘commodity fetishism’, namely that through alienation we have an ideological, almost
religious and distorted perception of things.
Barbara Kruger: Untitled (“Don’t be a Jerk”), 1984 / Untitled (“You`ve got money to burn”), 1987
Untitled (“Money Can Buy You Love”), 1985 / Untitled (“Buy me I`ll change your life”), 1984 / Untitled (“You are not yourself”), 1984
As Marcuse has discussed, the individual must rationally legitimize the superiority of the system.
Kruger plays with the rational pattern of thought and behaviour that justifies and even absolves the
behaviour of companies, e.g. in her picture Untitled („You‘ve got money to burn“) from 1987. Kruger
addresses the fact that we spend our money on constructed needs with which we support destructive
and cruel things, such as war. That‘s why you can burn the money as well. The satisfaction of the
false needs is rationalized by the ideology mediated and determined by the ruling class [Marx],
30 The time-specific and discourse-specific Environment of Barbara Kruger and James Jebbia the social powers [Marcuse] or today the control of the corporations [Kruger], which legitimizes mass consumption. Kruger appropriated the time- and discourse-specific effects of the known by using the same language as the corporations. By appropriating the same pictorial language, it reveals its psychological power and criticizes the development of capitalist society into a culture of mass consumption. The focus is on the consuming individual, driven by the power of consumer advertising. By using already existing images from journalism, fashion magazines, advertising, film and television, her citation points to the questioning of the content values of an image and she illuminates ideological aspects such as manipulated mass consumption. It challenges the viewer to question consumer advertising and critically reflect on it.
Because, according to the theory of ‘commodity fetishism’, everything is a commodity, or has the potential to be a one, including physical labor, according to Marx and Marcuse, creative inspiration or resistance is also permeated by commodity society. Kruger addresses this paradox with her own work.
Since she sells her works through her popularity as an artist, her works have a commodity status and thus a capitalist value. As we have analysed, she appropriated the visual language of advertising as a method, but used it subversively as a critique of the prevailing power relations and of the systematic manipulation of the individual.
The collaboration with the Selfridge Store in 2003, in which Kruger designed the Sale Campaign, shows exactly this paradox. The advertising signs for the Concept Store show Kruger‘s typical slogans such as „Buy me I`ll change your life“ or „I shop therefore I am“, and criticise exactly the entrepreneurial capitalism they advertise for. Kruger on the one hand sells her art of critical thinking to such institutions, but at the same time exhibits her art in public space, which contrasts with other capitalist billboards. This collaboration provides it with a platform to reach consumers in exactly those places where companies influence and control human awareness and potential through consumer advertising.
31
Sale Campaign in 2003 designed by Barbara Kruger and Selfridges, London (developed by Mother, an edgy advertising agency)
She points out that the ideologies of capitalism are discourse- and time-specific perspectives and thus
correspond only to the ruling norms and authorities. The method of appropriating, the palimpsest
of the existing, initiates a far-reaching critical dynamic. The new arrangement of the appropriated
material questions self-evident modes of perception, observation, and conceptualization. For this
reason, it is contrary to the explicit norms of its respective discourse. By appropriating the effects of
such images, posters or advertisements, she manipulates the already manipulated individual with the
opposite effect that promotes the critical and philosophical questioning of contemporary discourse.
Jebbia, on the other hand, grew up during the technological revolution, which was strongly influenced
by the Internet, the development of new technologies and the increased presence of media. Society
changed55. Political protests decreased as self-actualization moved to the center. What was added
and made the behaviour of consumers unpredictable was individuality: the idea, the feeling or the
ability that products can express the self of a consumer. This self-individuality no longer wanted
conformist goods. Previously, the mass industry was only profitable if a large quantity of the same
was produced. Due to the new technologies, the industry was able to move from mass production to
far more individual production, which was able to satisfy the various wishes of consumers in more
detail. Consumer goods, products and advertising had to develop a new language that addressed
this new, individual self of people. This led to an increase in the media presence of corporations in
public and private spaces. Advertising served to produce and satisfy the needs for individuality. Goods
already had an artificial meaning for the consumer, but in Jebbia‘s time products and goods began to
55 The following information is from the documentary film: Curtis, A. (2002). The Century of Self [Film]. UK: BBC. 32 The time-specific and discourse-specific Environment of Barbara Kruger and James Jebbia complement the individual in his self-discovery. This led to reality becoming more and more blurred with the media.
Jean Baudrillard56, the French media theorist, philosopher and sociologist, called this the medial simulacrum. He raised an overflowing discourse with his media criticism about the “disappearance of reality”. Baudrillard‘s theory goes one step further than Marx‘s theory of alienation and Marcuse‘s critique of capitalism. In the 1994 book “Simulacra and Simulation” Baudrillard writes the theory that we are in the age of simulation, a social state in which signs and reality become increasingly indistinguishable.
“But what if God himself can be simulated, that is to say can be reduced
to signs that constitute faith? Then the whole system becomes weightless,
it is no longer anything but a gigantic simulacrum - not unreal, but
simulacrum, that is to say never exchanged for the real, but exchanged
for itself, in an uninterrupted circuit without reference or circumference.”57
The signs have detached themselves from their meaning and have become “without reference”. The signs are not unreal, but a simulacrum. The signs “simulate” an artificial reality as hyperreality instead of depicting a real world. The character codes of advertising and the media only pretend to be decipherable messages. In truth, they are pure self-interest with which the overall system of society is maintained. He takes Disneyland as an example. This is presented as imaginary to make us believe that the rest is real. He describes that nothing is true anymore because “today, we are everywhere surrounded by the remarkable conspicuousness of consumption and affluence, established by the multiplication of objects, services, and material goods. This now constitutes a fundamental mutation
56 Jean Baudrillard, born 1929, Reims – 2007, Paris 57 Baudrillard, J. (2019). Selected Writings, Simulacra and Simulation [Ebook] (p. 170). Retrieved from http://faculty.humani- ties.uci.edu/poster/books/Baudrillard,%20Jean%20-%20Selected%20Writings_ok.pdf [Accessed 15 Mar. 2019]. 33 The time-specific and discourse-specific Environment of Barbara Kruger and James Jebbia in the ecology of the human species”58. This causes that “men of wealth are no longer surrounded by other human beings, as they have been in the past, but by objects”59. Objects we consume through advertising.
“If we consume the product as product, we consume its meaning
through advertising.”60
This describes the environment of Jebbia, in which the meanings of the products already represent very diverse and detailed market segments. Jebbia, for example, moved in the skater scene, which pursued a clear aesthetic and identified itself through consumption. Many brands produce today clothes for this niche, but Supreme was one of the first brands to specialize in this category. The individual style of the skaters was conveyed through advertising and expressed through goods such as skater shoes, deep-seated trousers, caps and loose T-shirts with inscriptions and prints. The fact that these products are fetishised, i.e. alienated by a purely artificial meaning, can be seen from the fact that these products can be taken over or adopted by completely opposing industries for their purposes, such as the luxury fashion brand Louis Vuitton did with Supreme.
Jebbia`s appropriation and the imitation of the style of Barbara Kruger seems paradoxical at first, because with the brand Supreme he copies the anti-commodity art of Kruger for the pure purpose of commercialization. But by analysing the time and discussing the specific environments of Kruger and Jebbia one can understand this development very well. Jebbia, takes Kruger‘s art as a reference, consciously or unconsciously, and uses it for capitalist commercial purposes. Kruger‘s protest against the systematic manipulation of the market economy by consumer advertising and hence the critique of capitalism, becomes a mass-produced commodity. A critical intention is devalued by transforming it 58 Baudrillard, J. (2019). Selected Writings, Consumer Society [Ebook] (p. 29). Retrieved from http://faculty.humanities.uci. edu/poster/books/Baudrillard,%20Jean%20-%20Selected%20Writings_ok.pdf [Accessed 15 Mar. 2019]. 59 Baudrillard, J. (2019). Selected Writings, Consumer Society [Ebook] (p. 29). Retrieved from http://faculty.humanities.uci. edu/poster/books/Baudrillard,%20Jean%20-%20Selected%20Writings_ok. [Accessed 15 Mar. 2019]. 60 Baudrillard, J. (2019). Selected Writings, The System of Objects [Ebook] (p. 10). Retrieved from http://faculty.humanities. uci.edu/poster/books/Baudrillard,%20Jean%20-%20Selected%20Writings_ok.pdf [Accessed 15 Mar. 2019]. 34 The time-specific and discourse-specific Environment of Barbara Kruger and James Jebbia into a commercial product.
Re-Appropriation is a common method of the capitalist system, a method of “commercializing” the opposition or transforming the negative opposition into a positive one. Marcuse describes this process, which in his opinion leads to one-dimensionality through the emptying and instrumentalization of capitalism, as the “the loss of this dimension, in which the power of negative thinking – the critical power of reason – is at home, is the ideological counterpart to the very material process in which advanced industrial society silences and reconciles the opposition”61 . This makes it clear that freedom and individuality are not detached but instrumentalized and externally determined by the ruling class [Marx], the social powers [Marcuse] or the market leaders [Kruger]. In its function, the individual is subject to social control, which is determined by capitalism and is thus alienated. In order to adapt the counter-movements and their voices and to transform them for capitalist purposes, the re-appropriation of the negative opposition takes place by transforming it into the positive, for example by satisfying false needs. The time-specific discursive relation of forces, which could be quantified more popularly as “mainstream”, is based on almost sacrosanct authorities, where deviant, anti, counter, underground opinions have no chance.
In the creative fields, this re-appropriation, e.g. of art through fashion and design, seems to happen naturally. Oppositions and counter-cultures that display anti-systematic, courageous, innovative, loud, rude and aggressive attitudes in order to criticize the current system by all means and try to change it, partly by force, are taken over as “sources of inspiration” and are adopted into the system. The fate of punk culture, in which rebellion against the system was commodified into a fashionable accessory, can be compared to Supreme, in which socio-critical and political art was commodified into a trend commodity for skaters. The commodity fetishist who buys Supreme most probably does not know
Barbara Kruger, and certainly not her philosophical and system-critical content of anti-capitalist art.
Supreme transforms critique, which expresses itself through „the power of negative thinking,“ into
61 Marcuse, H. (2014). Der Eindimensionale Mensch (p. 30). Springe: zu Klampen. 35 The time-specific and discourse-specific Environment of Barbara Kruger and James Jebbia a popular trend commodity. Supreme incorporates Kruger‘s style, but not the meaning; a philosophy becomes a commodity. It is paradoxical that Supreme embodies exactly what Kruger criticizes, but as according to Baudrillard, we no longer consume the product but the meaning of it, which is suggested by advertising, Supreme has devalued Barbara Kruger‘s criticism by indoctrinating the meaning of the product in the object itself. The new commercial meaning stands for masculinity, coolness, hipster and skater subculture.
36 Side Case Supreme Bitch 6.1 Side Case Supreme Bitch: Commodity represents feminism
Leah McSweeney started her ladies skate fashion brand Married to the Mob“ (MTTM) in 2004. Her
first T-shirt, titled Supreme Bitch, was a kind of homage fake marketing strategy; a homage to Barbara
Kruger‘s art, implemented as Supreme Fake, an intelligent marketing strategy that leads to certain
success. McSweeney founded MTTM because the streetwear apparel industry was predominantly
men-led and men-focused62. Jebbia sold her shirts at his shop called Union. When the fortune of
Supreme multiplied into absurdity due to the hype of Supreme, Supreme Bitch also profited and gained
great media attention.
Supreme Bitch Advertisemnt, by Married to the MOB (“Most obvious Bitch”) / Rhianna with Supreme Bitch Cap, Instagram 2012
In 2013 McSweeney filed a trademark application for the name Supreme Bitch. Supreme sued
McSweeney for $10 million and demanded that they remove the „fake“ items from trade. Although
he remembered that he had approved the original Supreme Bitch designs, according to Jebbia,
McSweeney‘s shirts are not just a logo reproduction, they‘re “trying to build her whole brand by
piggybacking off Supreme.”63 McSweeney commented on the legal prosecution in 2013 as follows:
“There’s this one Barbara Kruger piece that says, ‘Your comfort is my silence,’ and I can’t help but
think that I’m being silenced by Supreme with this lawsuit. I don’t have $250,000 to litigate this case,
and they know that.”64 She added that the Supreme Bitch T-shirt “originated as a criticism and parody
of the male-dominated and often misogynistic skate culture and Supreme brand”65. The cult skate 62 Wilt, K. Married to the MOB: Sexually Empowering Women across the Globe through Brand Image [Ebook] (p. 6). Kate Wilt. Retrieved from https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/d7a1/f0c936de2edec864c87936032f7a422a8d61.pdf [Accessed 10 Apr. 2019]. 63 Team, H., Kujundzic, P., Sawyer, J., Kujundzic, P., Sawyer, J., & Mrutu, A. (2013). Supreme Sues Married To The Mob Over Supreme Bitch T-Shirt. Retrieved from https://hypebeast.com/2013/5/supreme-sues-married-to-the-mob-for-10-million-over-supre- me-bitch-t-shirt [Accessed 15 Mar. 2019]. 64 Supreme vs. Supreme Bitch: The Lawsuit. (2013). Retrieved from http://www.thefashionlaw.com/home/supreme-vs-supre- me-bitch-the-lawsuit [Accessed 15 Mar. 2019]. 65 Supreme vs. Supreme Bitch: The Lawsuit. (2013). Retrieved from http://www.thefashionlaw.com/home/supreme-vs-supre- me-bitch-the-lawsuit [Accessed 15 Mar. 2019]. 37 Side Case Supreme Bitch wear brand Supreme has dropped its lawsuit against McSweeney. The parties were able to reach an out-of-court settlement in the same year, as McSweeney pays Supreme an undisclosed sum for the sale of Supreme Bitch T-shirts66. Since there are no Supreme Bitch T-shirts on the MTTM website67, these compensation terms don‘t seem too likely.
McSweeneys pushes herself into the discussion between Supreme and Kruger by her statements and by quoting Kruger. McSweeney‘s case is an interesting comparison, because she appropriates the same insignificant goods from Supreme, T-shirts with a print, but tries to breathe this socio-critical meaning into it.
Barbara Kruger Untitled (“Your comfort is my silence”), 1981 The picture Untitled „Your Comfort is my Silence“ from 1981, which McSweeney quotes, shows a man making a gesture to tell the viewer to be calm. The writing covers his eyes, which eliminates his identity and reduces him to a general symbol of male dominance and control. The image is interpreted in such a way that it means that the male dominates and pleasantly lives out his power in society and thus the force is not questioned68. McSweeney alludes to Supreme exercising his power to silence her and claim all the profit without being questioned. As in Kruger‘s picture, the overpowered, i.e. women and minorities, are silenced. It is interesting that Kruger writes the inscription from the point of view of the oppressed - by addressing it directly with “Your comfort is my silence” and not
66 The Supreme v. Supreme Bitch Lawsuit Is Over. (2013). Retrieved from http://www.thefashionlaw.com/home/supre- me-v-supreme-bitch-lawsuit-is-over [Accessed 15 Mar. 2019]. 67 Married to the Mob. (2019). Retrieved from https://mttmnyc.com/ [Accessed 15 Mar. 2019]. 68 Hakir, S. (2013). “Your Comfort is my Silence” analysis. Retrieved from https://samiyashakirhealthblog.wordpress. com/2013/04/07/your-comfort-is-my-silence/ [Accessed 10 Apr. 2019]. 38 Side Case Supreme Bitch “My comfort is your silence”, it seems the position of the silenced is conscious.
By appending the word “bitch” and quoting Kruger, McSweeny tries to position herself as „feminist“.
Whether the brand Supreme Bitch, which means „highest slut“, improved the sexual empowerment of women around the world through the brand image is questionable, but this example shows the rationalization and legitimization strategy of capitalism that Marcuse has already criticized. It was the idea of market psychologist Ernst Dichter that the „power of products“ could be used to strengthen human personality. This implemented that the object was given an additional, i.e. artificial, meaning, which created an importance and a relation to the individual. According to Dichter, such an artificial meaning was used, for example, by the inner desire of an individual to attain a common identity with the people around them as a strategy of desiring the object. The inscription Supreme Bitch expresses emancipation in this context and conveys self-confidence. The reference to Supreme Graphics associates belonging to the hipster skater subculture. Because of this, the barrier of guilt is overcome. I do not just consume a cheap T-shirt, I buy feminism and subculture. Dichter‘s strategy of creating a stable consumer society that identifies itself through products has manifested itself, because in this case women do not protest for their rights, but consume the artificial meaning of it. McSweeney uses the socio-critical and political content of Kruger‘s art as a marketing strategy and suggests „feminism“ with her product. She manages to market a real need for equality as a niche product in the male-dominated skater industry. The strategy can be recognized, on the one hand, by the fact that McSweeney initially collaborated with Supreme and by the fact that she uses Kruger‘s anti-commodity art to defend and legitimize her capitalist goods, i.e. ignores Kruger‘s critique of the capitalist system and instrumentalizes only her feminist critique.
Kruger expressed herself once during this process in 2013, probably due to the many requests and sent a Word document with the sentence: “What a ridiculous clusterfuck of totally uncool jokers. I make my work about this kind of sadly foolish farce. I’m waiting for all of them to sue me for copyright
39 Side Case Supreme Bitch infringement.”69
Barbara Kruger, Statement 2013 (Foster Kamer, Editor at Complex)
Of course this statement was also used by McSweeney for her publicity, but Barbara Kruger has
written „totally uncool jokers“ and „I’m waiting for all of them“ in the plural, which implies that not
only Jebbia but also McSweeney is meant.
69 Stoeffel, K. (2017). I Think About This a Lot: When a Feminist Artist Dragged Overgrown Skaters. Retrieved from https:// www.thecut.com/2017/11/i-think-about-when-barbara-kruger-dragged-supreme-a-lot.html [Accessed 10 Apr. 2019]. Kamer, F. (2013). Barbara Kruger Responds to Supreme‘s Lawsuit: ‚A Ridiculous Clusterf**k of Totally Uncool Jokers‘. [online] Complex. Available at: https://www.complex.com/style/2013/05/barbara-kruger-responds-to-supremes-lawsuit-a-ridicu- lous-clusterfk-of-totally-uncool-jokers [Accessed 15 Apr. 2019]. 40 Side Case Supreme Barletta 6.2 Side Case Supreme Barletta: The Pure Commodity
In 2015 in Barletta, an Italian city, began the production of Supreme Barletta, also known as Supreme
Italia or today Supreme Streetwear. The company does not belong to James Jebbia, it is owned by
unknown Italian retailers. Supreme Barletta sells the same type of clothing and uses the same logo,
with a slightly larger font in relation to the red box.
Supreme Italy, Pictures NSS-Magazine, 2017
The brand Supreme is not protected and therefore the legal trademarks are missing70. James Jebbia
does not own the name Supreme. As he said to Interview Magazine in 2009: “It’s a good name, but it’s
a difficult one to trademark.”71 What does this statement mean? The trade mark is the reputation of
the product. An important concern for trademarks is that a brand could confuse consumers about the
product and its reputation. To prevent or reduce possible confusion in the marketplace the Trademark
Office analyses and categorizes each submission. Trademarks are divided into four categories: Generic,
Descriptive, Suggestive und Arbitrary/Fanciful. Supreme would belong in the trademark category
“Descriptive” and would have to prove by surveys that Supreme as a trademark has a secondary
meaning of the term. It might be difficult to register a brand like Supreme, as I quote Jebbia, because
the brand name Supreme is too general and it is difficult to prove that it has a secondary meaning
for a majority of people. The use on clothing and skateboard decks was only accepted by the United
States Patent and Trademark Office in 2012, but the European Union refuses to register Supreme as
trademark72. The trademark dilemma of Supreme‘s red box logo has nothing to do with the similarity 70 Chen, J. (2019). Registering Descriptive Trademarks: Supreme As a Case Study » The Law Office of Jeremy Chen | Social Enterprise Lawyer. [online] Jeremychenlaw.com. Available at: http://jeremychenlaw.com/supreme-trademark-trouble-with-registe- ring-descriptive-trademarks/ [Accessed 3 Mar. 2019]. 71 O’Brien, G. (2009). James Jebbia is Supreme - Interview Magazine. Retrieved from https://www.interviewmagazine.com/ fashion/james-jebbia-is-supreme [Accessed 15 Apr. 2019]. 72 NSS Staff (2018). Europen Union refuses to register Supreme as trademark. [online] nss magazine. Available at: https:// 41 Side Case Supreme Barletta of Kruger‘s art and the logo can be legally copied in Europe.
Supreme Barletta produces large quantities and sells them online and to retail shops, in the low price segment, throughout Europe in contrast to the concept of Supreme. As already highlighted in this research Supreme produces in limited edition and sells exclusively in the Supreme Stores. Jebbia says
“we have it and it’s gone in two weeks and then it’s done”73.
As we can see from the example of Supreme Barletta, the demand for the fetishised product, i.e. the authenticated Supreme Brand, triggers a geographical concentration and thus a certain exclusivity due to its accessibility. Supreme is not available in Italy. The materially insignificant commodity has received an enormous global value through the alienation of ‘commodity fetishism’. Although there are many similar products on the saturated market the consumer only wants the highly fetishized product which creates a demand for imitations. Therefore, Supreme Barletta has become the local phenomenon of an authorized legal fake.
This phenomenon can only be based on the ignorant and passive consumer. As discussed earlier, people were educated over the last century to manipulated, ignorant and passive consumers who act only according to the principle of need and desire. These goods, for which this consuming self-demands, are, as we see in Supreme Barletta, neither handcrafted nor technically refined, nor does it have any meaning. With Supreme, as Marx described it, the essence, i.e. the social production relationship, which today refers to the entire complex supply chain of the mass production industry, has become completely alienated and detached from the appearance on the market. Supreme became a horribly overpriced commodity fetishised as an exclusive old-school skater brand. However, Supreme
Barletta, has no more meaning and is only a pure alienated commodity, without fetish. It is a pure capitalistic commodity. In addition, by being offered for ridiculously low prices and being more or less the same object, Supreme Barletta exposes Supreme as an equally cheap commodity consisting www.nssmag.com/en/fashion/14761/supreme-italy-loses-2nd-legal-battle [Accessed 15 Apr. 2019]. 73 O’Brien, G. (2009). James Jebbia is Supreme - Interview Magazine. Retrieved from https://www.interviewmagazine.com/ fashion/james-jebbia-is-supreme [Accessed 13 Apr. 2019]. 42 Side Case Supreme Barletta entirely out of the value of ‘commodity fetishism’.
„It becomes plain, that it is not the exchange of commodities which regulates
the magnitude of their value; but, on the contrary, that it is the magnitude of
their value which controls their exchange proportion.“74
Since the fetishised commodity as an autonomous entity, i.e. the complete alienation of the commodity, acquires an authorised validity in society, as in Supreme Barletta, it becomes clear that society is poorly critical and strongly codified by ‘commodity fetishism’. In this example one sees that there is no longer even a demand for the meaning of a thing, but only the desire for the cheapest thing that is possible.
74 Marx, K. (2019). Capital [Ebook] (p. 42). Retrieved from https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/pdf/ Capital-Volume-I.pdf [Accessed 11 Apr. 2019]. 43 The Commodity we desire 7. The Commodity we Desire
Through the main case example, the discussion between Barbara Kruger and Supreme and the resulting incidental examples, Supreme Bitch and Supreme Barletta, it becomes clear that in capitalism objects are commodified in order to market them and sell them as goods. This is promoted and legitimized by fetishizing the goods through advertising and marketing, i.e. public relations. This means the artificial meaning conceals the real relationship of production capitalism. Marx‘s theory of
‘commodity fetishism’ shows the development of capitalism, which has shaped the commodity into an autonomous form. What is interesting about the history of the indispensable process of appropriation and reappropriation - from Malevich and Russian Constructivism, to Kruger and Supreme, to
Supreme Bitch and Supreme Barletta - is that everything manifests itself in the object, even though it is no longer about the „material“ object itself or its function. Despite the fact that these objects are totally fetishized, i.e. have an alienated meaning, they are still material and tangible objects that we desire.
This chapter uses the theory of Lauren Berlants book “Cruel Optimism” and Kevin Floyd‘s book
“Reification of Desire” to discuss why the object is central when it is no longer the object itself. For generating value in capitalism the object is essential, it is fetishized and is conditioned to maintain the system. Marx compared this process of fetishizing the commodity with belief in God, explaining how capitalism justifies the relationship of exchange created by human beings through the production of commodities. Objects are almost exclusively subject to the palimpsest of reification, the almost religiously everlasting appropriation and reappropriation overwrites the objects with capitalist ideology, thus justifying the capitalist system.
Lauren Berlant describes the desire for objects and the attachment to objects in her book “Cruel
Optimism”. She explains the desire and attachment of the Objects of Desires, through the positive promises made to these attachments:
44 The Commodity we desire
“All attachments are optimistic. When we talk about an object of desire,
we are really talking about a cluster of promises we want someone or something
to make us and make possible for us. This cluster of promises could seem
embedded in a person, a thing, an institution, a text, a norm, a bunch of cells,
smells, a good idea – whatever. To phrase ”the object of desire” as a cluster of
promises is to allow us to encounter what’s incoherent or enigmatic in our
attachments, not as confirmation of our irrationality but as an explanation of
our sense of endurance in the object, insofar as proximity to the object means
proximity to the cluster of things that the object promises, some of which may
be clear to us and good for us while others, not so much.”75
An object of desire is defined by the multitude of promises we make to ourselves or that are made to us. This enables our “endurance in the object”, which is always optically loaded but does not necessarily have to feel optimistic. “Cruel Optimism” exists “when something you desire is actually an obstacle to your flourishing”76. An individual‘s relationship to a particular object of desire can be self-destructive or harmful because it is so closely linked to the way an individual perceives and negotiates or mediates the world. The loss can irreparably destroy any further reason for life or it blocks what motivates our attachment in the first place.
Lauren Berlants theory shows that we hold on to these “attachments”, the promises with which the object is loaded, because the loss, i.e. the dissolution of the artificial meaning, destroys every reason for further life. This means that objects have fetishized so strongly that complex meanings attach to them. So that without these objects, or the dissolution of their promises, we have no sense anymore, because the sense became attached to these objects. We are not aware of these attachments because they are complex and entangled in the process of appropriation and re-appropriation and their
75 Berlant, L. (2011). Cruel optimism (p. 24). Durham: Duke University Press. 76 Berlant, L. (2011). Cruel optimism (p. 1). Durham: Duke University Press. 45 The Commodity we desire referentiality is difficult to comprehend.
If we apply Lauren Berlant‘s theory to the main case example, we see that Supreme‘s attached promises of the trendy skater-brand mixed with its artistic background of Kruger are maintaining the attachments, selling the consumer a certain sense of belonging to a „culture“. But the former attachment of the hip New York underground skater scene has expanded to a far more global and complex attachment, as we see in the example of Supreme Barletta and Supreme Bitch. Since probably very few consumers now skateboard themselves and are neither interested in the skater scene nor familiar with Barbara Kruger, one can see that these products embody a pure capitalist lifestyle culture. In the case of Supreme Barletta the meaning is not even up for debate. It is more the feeling of consuming that is attached to a whole lifestyle of consumerism. Here Lauren Berlants theory becomes important that these ideas become organized fantasies of the “good life” that determine us.
The drama of adapting to the pressure of these “fantasies”77 is much more important and is that what exhausts people in everyday life. In order to adapt, you have to consume things, i.e. goods.
Lauren Berlants suggests that the understanding of this presence of “Cruel Optimism” would enable us to better understand the conditions in which we live today. Berlant describes the recognition and understanding of the various dead ends in which we find ourselves, could create alternative conditions for a different life, but the fantasies of the supposedly “good life” in the present persist in deceiving us. Here we see clear parallels to Barbara Kruger‘s work. Kruger does not necessarily offer answers to the complex and organized fantasies of the “good life” that we consume everyday but she draws attention to this and gives a clear message that these are controlled and therefore we do not have to accept this system as a definitive one. Berlant reveals through the theory of “Cruel Optimism” why people decide not to defend themselves, but “ride the wave of the system of attachment they are used to”78. The fantasies of “good life” in the present are not sustainable. Berlant therefore calls on us to
77 Berlant, L. (2011). Cruel optimism (p. 11). Durham: Duke University Press. 78 Berlant, L. (2011). Cruel optimism (p. 28). Durham: Duke University Press 46 The Commodity we desire find our way out of the structural impasse of capitalism and to face the complex social relations, even if they are painful or “cruel”. Thus, according to Berlant, one would get a real connection to production capitalism and to the complex, huge supply chain of the mass production industry and would detach oneself from the reification of goods.
The manifestation of capitalist sensibility lies in the exchange value of objects, which we see in all
Supreme cases. The exchange value is irrational, as we know from the ‘commodity fetishism’, and maintains structural contradictions because, it hides the real relations of production capitalism which as Berlant describes is absolutely crazy:
“In this final logic, though, capitalist sensibility in “Exchange Value” manifests
as crazy in the way that reason is crazy – not only crazy-dogged, crazy-compulsive,
crazy-formalist, and crazy-habituated, but crazy from the activity of maintaining
structural contradictions.”179
In his book “Reification of Desire” Kevin Floyd describes the concept of reification. A far more radical theory than Lauren Berlant‘s. His theory says that meaning is not only attached, but reified in these objects. Floyd discussed through the theory of György Lukàcs, who elaborated Marx theory of
‘commodity fetishism’ that structurally organized capitalism reifies in an unprecedented, and indeed total way, any qualities and relationships between people:
“Lukács extends Marx’s arguments about the fetishism of the commodity to
argue that scientifically managed capitalism reifies, in an unprecedented and
indeed total fashion, properties and relations that are always ultimately social,
historical, and human.”280
791 Berlant, L. (2011). Cruel optimism (p. 42). Durham: Duke University Press. 802 Floyd, K. (2009). The reification of desire (p. 40). Minneapolis, Minn.: University of Minnesota Press. 47 The Commodity we desire
Floyd further describes “reification compels an experience of privatization and isolation, an experience of exchange relations as impermeable to human intervention”81. Every link in this chain of concepts becomes part of the material history of the regulation of desire. The example of Supreme shows that the reification of Barbara Kruger‘s philosophical, socio-critical and political art is possible through capitalism and thus a reification of social, historical and human relations takes place.
According to Floyd, this becomes impervious to human intervention, so the reification of Kruger‘s art has taken on a life of its own, as in the examples of Supreme Bitch and Supreme Barletta. Even philosophical exchange relations and the discussion about the equality of women can be reified, what can be seen in the example of Supreme Bitch.
“Reification refers to a certain misapprehension of capitalist social relations; it
identifies the very process of social differentiation within capital as fundamentally
and objectively mystifying, as preempting any critical comprehension of the social.
No mere subjective illusion, this misapprehension is as socially and historically
determinate as capital itself.”82
Floyd‘s attention is particularly drawn to the imperative of consumption in the second chapter of the book. In his analysis, he focuses on how capitalism regularly experiences crises of accumulation. One way to solve such crises is to increase the consumption of consumer goods. But this is only possible if wages are high enough to generate real demand and, more importantly for Floyds‘ study, if consumer desires can be both produced and transformed into a kind of urgency. Floyd describes the discourse in which Supreme moves, in the imperative of consumption, the time in which consumption was transformed into a kind of urgency. People camp to consume. According to Floyd, the „Reification“ has largely manifested and illustrated itself in our society.
81 Floyd, K. (2009). The reification of desire (p. 17). Minneapolis, Minn.: University of Minnesota Press. 82 Floyd, K. (2009). The reification of desire (p. 17). Minneapolis, Minn.: University of Minnesota Press. 48 The Commodity we desire
In Lauren Berlants theory of „Cruel Optimism“ and Kevin Floyds theory of „Reification of Desire“, there is a parallel that structural capitalism produced a modification of the object. Both highlight that the organized and controlled fantasies or reifications are not sustainable. With Kevin Floyd, they are even totalitarian and thus inaccessible to human interaction. According to Floyd‘s theory, objects are the instruments of the imperative of consumption. For example, skateboards, T-shirts, sunglasses are all objects that show instruments of suburban, heterosexual, white gender expression with which this imperative of consumption functions. In this way, these consumer desires are produced and transformed into a kind of necessity that the individual cannot escape. The kind of communication which took place through Kruger‘s action of protest is now taking place over commercial goods, as the wearing of the Supreme Bitch shirt claims to be feminist.
With Lauren Berlant, on the other hand, there is a way out of the structural impasse of capitalism in exemplary cases of adaptation to the loss of fantasy. She explains that her “method is to read patterns of adjustment in specific aesthetic and social contexts to derive what’s collective about specific modes of sensual activity toward and beyond survival”83. Here Berlants attention is directed to the minor effects which, when repeated and repeated, like Kruger‘s response to Supreme, draw attention to the cruelty of this optimism. Because our investment in optimism is based on trained ideas of what „good life“ brings with it. In other words, she concentrates on re-training attachments, the rewriting of them for a theoretical collective sense of the historical present. And so the idea would be to set in motion a palimpsest of the present that consequently rethinks the present.
83 Berlant, L. (2011). Cruel optimism (p. 9). Durham: Duke University Press. 49 Kruger’s art preformance at the Performa 17
8. Kruger’s art performance at the Performa 17: A philosophical Discussion
In the most recent example of the discussion between Kruger and Supreme, one can see that Kruger is actively artistically concerned with the fact that Supreme had converted her anti-commodity art for commercial purposes.
She designed the visual branding and exhibited at Performa 17 in New York. Here, Kruger reappropriates her own, meanwhile strongly commercialized and capitalized style. She staged her exhibition as a re-enactment or imitation of a Supreme Shop with the same Supreme brand items. She created the full shopping experience hyping a capitalistic commodity, including waiting and queuing.
She makes her art publicly accessible by placing it in the Skatepark. By imitating Supreme and adding slogans to cheaply produced clothing accessories and skateboards, she refers to legitimate ideologies that have rationalized mass consumption. Through questions and statements directly addressed to
Supreme, Kruger questions on one hand the „commodification“ of her art and on the other also general the commodification of things, opinions, criticisms, ideologies, protests etc.
The prints on skateboards shows slogans like „Don`t be a jerk“ or on T-shirts „Want it Buy it Forget it“. Huge banners are placed in a skatepark with the inscription „Whose Hopes? Whose Fears?
Whose Values? Whose Justice?“. The invitation „Want it Buy it Forget it“ simply expresses the selfish and wasteful attitude of a globalized society as if Kruger would describe the ignorant and passive consumer, in the example of Supreme Barletta.
By decoding and decentralizing words, such as the word „value“, she criticizes and questions the value attached, which reduces our active social relationships to fetishised “valuable” commodities and thus controls us.
50 Kruger’s art preformance at the Performa 17 Through Kruger‘s philosophical questions and statements she raises Jebbia to equal level as a
discussion partner in this important dialogue. Barbara Kruger does not address Supreme Bitch or
Supreme Barletta directly because, although they result from the case, they are purely capitalist and
have no political or socio-critical meaning and, according to Floyd, are totally reified, i.e. no longer
allow human intervention. Jebbia, on the other hand, is part of the process through the promises with
which his goods are attached, and thus part of the philosophical discussion and discourse.
Performa 17: Skatepark in New York City, Barbara Kruger‘s Exhibition, Billboard, Artpieces, 2017
Barbara Kruger, “Don`t be a Jerk” Skatebords, 2017
The eternal, almost slapstick-like repetition of Barbara Kruger‘s and Supreme‘s process of
appropriation and reappropriation shows how Marcuse recognized that the individual is subject to
51 Kruger’s art preformance at the Performa 17 the ideology of the capitalist system. But Kruger confronts this paradox. In the case of Kruger and
Supreme, the discussion is socially and philosophically important because, on the one hand, it reveals
the paradox of capitalism where everything is a commodity and thus has an artificial value. On
the other hand, the capitalist impasse mentioned by Lauren Berlant, in which the strongly codified
and poorly critical society is hidden, manifests itself in repeated appropriation and reappropriation
without finding a way out. As already explained, the process of emotional bonding with a commodity
was indeed promoted by market psychology, which manipulated and thus controlled the unconscious
buying motivation. But as we can read in Ernest Dichter‘s theory, the artificial force of an object had
to overcome the barrier of guilt. The example Supreme Barletta shows that there is no such barrier
anymore. We desire a material, qualitatively unsatisfactory, cheap, multiplied replicated object without
any meaning. Desire thus manifests itself in the end of the impasse, in the material possession of
an object, a thing. The end of the capitalist impasse is the pure capitalist commodity, the „supreme“
emptying of extinct meaning as in the example of Supreme Barletta.
The palimpsest of reification and commodification of the object shows the repeated process of
overwriting the meanings of things and serves the maintenance of the capitalist system. These things,
objects or goods determine human and social relationships and thus write history. As Kruger keeps
writing and Jebbia keeps answering, the discussion continues.
Supremes Metro Card’s released in Spring/Summer 2017 / Barbara Kruger’s design of the Metro tickets at the Performa 17 in NY in Autumn
52 Master Thesis Evita Rigert Tutor, Prof. Mijke van der Drift Sandberg Instituut 2017 - 2019 Master Design of Experience University of the Underground This almost slapstick-like, everlasting appropriation and reappropriation of the conceptual artist Barbara Kruger and James Jebbia, the founder of Brand Supreme, proves Herbert Marcuse‘s theory that the individual is subject to the ideology of the capitalist system. The palimpsest of reification and commodification of the object is essential to maintain this system. This case study of Kruger and Su- preme is philosophically important because it recalls the legitimate ideologies rationalized by mass consumption.
Sandberg Instituut Amsterdam
ISBN 20-09-1987-Amsterdam-2017-2019
E.R. 2019 ID: 1027451
54