Comparison of Social Criticism in the Works of Barbara Kruger and Jenny Holzer Master’S Diploma Thesis

Masaryk University Faculty of Arts

Department of English and American Studies

English Language and Literature

Bc. Katarína Belejová

Comparison of Social Criticism in the Works of Barbara Kruger and Jenny Holzer Master’s Diploma Thesis

Supervisor: doc. PhDr. Tomáš Pospíšil, Dr.

2013

I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography.

…………………………………………….. Bc. Katarína Belejová

Acknowledgement I would like to thank my supervisor, doc. PhDr. Tomáš Pospíšil, Dr., for his encouragement, patience and inspirational remarks. I would also like to thank my family for their support.

Table of Contents

Introduction ...... 5

1. Postmodern Art, Conceptual Art and Social Criticism ...... 7

1.1 Social Criticism as a Part of Postmodernity ...... 7

1.2 Postmodernism, Conceptual Art and Promotion of a Thought ...... 9

1.2. Importance of Subversion and Parody ...... 12

1.3 Conceptual Art and Its Audience ...... 16

2. American context ...... 21

2.1 The 1980s in the USA ...... 21

3. Analyses of Social Criticism in the Works of Barbara Kruger and Jenny Holzer ... 29

3.1 Barbara Kruger ...... 29

3.1.1 General Overview ...... 29

3.1.2 Feminism ...... 34

3.1.3 Power, Control and Manipulation ...... 39

3.1.4 Consumerism and commodification ...... 43

3.2 Jenny Holzer...... 47

3.2.1 General Overview ...... 47

3.2.2 Manipulation and Ideological Hegemony ...... 52

3.2.4 Mass media and Consumerism ...... 54

3.2.4 Feminism ...... 57

Works Cited ...... 65

List of Visual Works Used in the Thesis ...... 68

English Summary ...... 69

Czech Summary ...... 70

Introduction

In contemporary postmodern art, a great and important role is played by social criticism, which functions on various levels. It may be targeted on specific events, figures of social life, corporations and so on as well as on social concepts, way of life, overlooking the importance of minorities or ecological problems. Artists themselves are very often also political or social rights activists and they present their private opinions on various political and social problems publicly and these opinions become the basement for the assessment of their works. Artists and their works also play a considerable role in various activist and political campaigns. In short, social criticism is an omnipresent feature of today’s art.

In this diploma thesis, I focus on the way in which social criticism enters the 1980s works of two American postmodern artists - Barbara Kruger and Jenny

Holzer. I would like to focus on topics of social criticism they cover as well as on the way they present it. These two particular artists were chosen because a wide platform of common features can be found in their art: they are both visual artist using textual elements in their art, they represent the same span in art (the era from 1980s till now), they are both female artists incorporating feminism into their art, they are both Americans concerned with (and criticizing) the American way of life and they both consciously use postmodern concepts and theories in their works. On the other hand, numerous differences could be found between them, such as different style of presentation, attitude toward their audience and many more. Therefore, the works of these two artists offer a rich material for a comparison.

In the first chapter of my thesis, which is mainly theoretical, the topic of social criticism in postmodern art is covered in general. I point out some general tendencies

and the main topics that are covered in the sphere of social criticism by postmodern artists in recent decades. I also focus on some of the main features they use to convey the criticism to their audience. In this part, I briefly comment on the way of presentation of these critical artworks, because this aspect is a very important factor in the analysis of Jenny Holzer´s work. In the second chapter, I comment on some of the main problems that social criticism in these works covers and I focus on them in the American context, as both Holzer and Kruger deal with their topics mainly in connection with American tradition and American stereotypes, which will be shown later. In the third chapter of this work some of the representative works of these two artists are analyzed each of them respectively. The chapter is divided into two subchapters, each of them covering one of the artists. In the subchapters, first a brief general overview of the artists is given and then their works are interpreted.

The analyses are based on the topic ranges introduced in the first and the second chapter and they mostly cover how the American stereotypes of the 1908s and their criticism are presented.

At the end of this diploma thesis, in the conclusion, the comparison of the works of Barbara Kruger and Jenny Holzer is given. I comment on the similarities and differences between the presented topics, I point out which tools they use to convey the social criticism to their audience and which aspects are the most important in the presentation of their positions.

1. Postmodern Art, Conceptual Art and Social Criticism

1.1 Social Criticism as an Inherent Part of Postmodernity

It could be proposed that criticism dealing with and commenting on various aspects of society is a very common and very important feature of postmodernism and of the postmodern art. The credit for this could be given to some of the main philosophical concepts introduced in the postmodern era. Firstly, the theories of Jean-

Francois Lyotard should be mentioned here. According to him, the understanding of the term postmodernism could be simplified to a fall of the grand narratives – the myths, stories and worldviews with a universal validity.

He announces a chief theme of the postmodern turn: the decline of

the legitimating power of ´metanarratives´ as distinctive of postmodern

culture. Metanarratives refer to foundational theories/theories of knowledge,

morality or aesthetics) and grand stories of social progress which have been

central to the legitimation of modern knowledge, culture, and social

institutions. (Seidman 5)

Instead of these great narratives, the stories and points of view of minorities, suppressed groups of people and individuals are presented and get more attention. In terms of social criticism, the examples of various groups representing the opposition against the dominant discourse, such as feminists who try to subvert traditionally male-based view of society and history, gay movements trying to undermine heterosexual views or black people trying to break down the white hegemonic discourse could be listed. Also narratives of great religions and political systems such as Christianity or Capitalism are questioned and their flaws are being pointed at.

Secondly, the concept of Derridean deconstruction cannot be omitted. What

Derrida sees as the biggest problem of Western thought tradition is that it is structured in what he calls “binary oppositions” - pair concepts that oppose each other (for example black/white male/female, etc.). From Derrida´s point of view people always tend to associate one of the pair with more positive connotations based on a hegemonic social view and therefore, the judgment is always based on a prejudice.

He tries to overcome this way of thinking by what he calls deconstruction. His critique of binary opposition is widely used for example in the promotion of feminist movement (deconstruction of male/female binary opposition) or in postcolonial thinking (Taylor and Winquist 84-5).

For sure, more examples could be stated to support the claim that the subversive nature of postmodernism could be found in its very core. Both rejection of the grand narratives and the deconstruction are directed from the ways of thinking and perception of reality that are culturally acclaimed as the tolerable and the right ones towards new and progressive views. As Joel F. Handler describes it:

The subversion theme - variously described as deconstruction, radical

indeterminacy, anti-essentialism or antifundamentalism - whether in art,

architecture, literature, philosophy-seeks to demonstrate the inherent instability

of seemingly hegemonic structures, that power is diffused throughout society,

and that there are multiple possibilities for resistance of oppressed people.

(Handler 697)

In the context of this thesis, it is very important to bear these concepts in mind, as they might be seen as the basis of social criticism and it is mainly the subversion of hegemonic views that will be addressed in the analyses given in the third chapter.

1.2 Postmodernism, Conceptual Art and Promotion of a Thought

Besides new philosophical concepts and views, there are also other reasons why social criticism is an important part of postmodern art. This necessity to present strong messages in art is interconnected with the evolution of art itself. In the 20th century, art underwent lot of changes. These changes were provoked by many factors such as the improvement of technique, which was a partial reason why art lost some of the functions it used to have (for example the mimetic function of painting was replaced by photography). How Walter Benjamin states in his renowned essay

“The Work of Art in the Era of Its Technological Reproducibility”, with the emergence of photography, cinema and recordable and reproducible music, art ceased to be based on an object of art. As the object of art could be easily reproduced, copied or rerecorded, it lost its “aura”, its uniqueness. He says:

For the first time in world history, mechanical reproduction emancipates

the work of art from its parasitical dependence on ritual. To an ever greater

degree, the work of art reproduced becomes the work of art designed for

reproducibility. From a photographic negative, for example, one can make

any number of prints; to ask for the “authentic” print makes no sense. But

the instant the criterion of authenticity ceases to be applicable to artistic

production; the total function of art is reversed. Instead of being based on

ritual, it begins to be based on another practice-politics. (Benjamin 220)

Therefore, artists had to redefine the position and the goals of art.

The beginning of this redefinition could be seen in modernists´ rebellion against traditional forms and the changes in understanding of art structures and forms. Its continuation could be found in Dadaism and Marcel Duchamp who by exhibition of

aurinal at an art competition introduced an entirely new art form called ready-made and it culminated in the birth of conceptual art. By the introduction of the concept of ready-made objects, Duchamp opened an entirely new era in art - the era in which craftwork and skills became subordinate to the concept and thought which are presented:

The most profound artistic development of the last decade [the book was

published in the 1986] or so has been a marked shift in mainstream art from

a primary concern with material and formal elements of the art object to

a focus on the extra-formal content of the work of art. The term "extra-formal

content" as used here refers to content in its traditional sense, denoting

something that is signified, some idea to be conveyed, something intended to

be interpreted, including any aspect that might come under the broad label of

"subject matter": language and concept; narrative; social, political or cultural

relevance; moral issues; psychological and metaphysical concerns-in short all

those aspects traditional to visual art in the Western world that the Modernists

discredited as “literary” or “thematic” values. Indeed the central issue of post-

Modernism is the issue of content. (Foster The Anti-Aesthetic: Essays on

Postmodern Culture 15-16)

The superiority of idea and conveyance of a thought to the audience is a shift in art, which is very important for the understanding of the reason why social criticism and involvement in the public issues are so important for contemporary postmodern art. Altieri explains it as follows:

If artists are to speak about content, they must give that some intellectual

substance; and if they are to make claims to express postmodern sensibilities,

they must characterize their productive energies in ways less prone to

the empty narcissism of such vague claims to difference. With such pressures,

combined with the appalling flexibility of social conscience that became

dominant in the Reagan years, there emerged an increasing demand for

concrete political measures of art's capacity to make itself a distinctive voice

within the play of voices competing for social hegemony. (Altieri 446)

This tendency to focus on a thought is best detectable in Conceptual art which is represented by both Barbara Kruger and Jenny Holzer:

Like chance art (indeterminacy in art), environmental art, and performance art,

conceptual art has its roots in Dada and particularly in the work of Duchamp. It

picks up from the antiart, antiskill, antiobject aspect of the Dadaist

nonphilosophy. As implied by their name, conceptual artists emphasize their

thoughts over their skill in manipulating materials. (Leuthold 41)

From the very beginning, this promotion of an idea over form was interconnected with social and political views and used to convey social criticism:

In the 1960s conceptual art was a reaction against the commercialization of art

manifested by the increasing corporate sponsorship of formerly avant-garde art

forms such as abstract painting. It was thought that art that simply consists of

process, language, documentation, and so forth, would not be bought and sold

as a product in the same way that art objects are. As Thomas McEvilley has

written, this rejection of the commercial art world has its roots in Marxist

social theory: Under the influence of both the Frankfurt critics and Louis

Althusser, the impulse arose to make artworks that would not only avoid

the trap of commodification and fetishism but reveal them as well-art-works

that would pry apart the unidirectionality of the culture industry and turn its

elements and strategies against itself. (Leuthold 42)

If some of the themes covered by this criticism should be mentioned, they should definitely be based on the concepts mentioned in the first subchapter. Bearing in mind Derridean deconstruction and Lyotard´s collapse of the grand narratives and the general point made on the importance of strategy of subversion for the postmodern art, one can easily deduce that the criticism is aimed against the most traditional metanarratives and the most traditional concepts governing Western thinking and, as it has been already foreshadowed, it is based on the promotion of the views of minorities and social groups that were oppressed in past. In American context, this list could begin with the subversion of the stereotype according to which the major political and social power is held by the WASP (White Anglo-Saxon

Protestant) majority. Logically, the American postmodern social criticism is therefore mostly based on the promotion of views of social, ethnical or religious groups who do not fit into the WASP pattern. Moreover, postmodern social criticism is also aimed at the great political and economic ideologies, in case of America, at Capitalism

(the reason for this is depicted in the following chapter). In connection with this, as it has been already hinted upon in Leuthold´s quote, the criticism is concerned also with the various establishments and institutions created by these ideologies. Among these, for example the cult of mass media or the cult of consumerism could be mentioned.

Also some of the ideological concepts that promote traditionally dominant values of the Western civilization and suppress the postmodern ideals of various coexisting worldviews, such as patriotism, nationalism, imperialism or bourgeois ideology should not be omitted.

1.2. Importance of Subversion and Parody

As for the ways in which the ccritique is conveyed, artists that convey social criticism, naturally, build mostly on general tendencies of postmodern and conceptual

art which they appropriate for their own needs. It is understandable, that there is a great range of approaches to criticism in art and therefore, this chapter mentions only those of them that will be relevant in subsequent chapters that analyze the works of Barbara Kruger and Jenny Holzer.

First, it is important to mention the strategy of parody as it was introduced by

Linda Hutcheon, a renowned theoretic of postmodernism. From her point of view, parody and subsequent irony is one of the most important and defining features of postmodern art. She says:

I want to argue that it is precisely parody - that seemingly introverted

formalism - that paradoxically brings about a direct confrontation with the

problem of the relation of the aesthetic to a world of significance external to

itself, to a discursive world of socially defined meaning systems (past and

present) - in other words, to ideology and history. (...) I want to argue that

postmodernism is a fundamentally contradictory enterprise: its art forms (and

its theory) use and abuse, install and then subvert convention in parodic ways,

self-consciously pointing both to their own inherent paradoxes and

provisionality and, of course, to their critical or ironic re-reading of the art of

the past. (Hutcheon 179-180)

Hutcheon’s words describe the importance of parody for social criticism in art very well - she points out the challenging of the existing ideology and also of history.

She also highlights the subversion of art forms that are typical for the symptom in the society on which the criticism is aimed. These art forms often stand as symbols of the criticized symptom and through the parody and subversion of the art form, the whole aspect of the society can be criticized. However, this reading of the use of parody can be extended also to other modes of representation than on art forms. In

the analyses, it will be shown how both Holzer and Kruger apply this concept of subversion on commercials and advertising.

Subversion and appropriation can be seen also in common use of a wide range of paraphrases, quoting and intertextuality. Conceptual art more or less builds on a conscious continuation of a certain artistic tradition. When trying to define

Conceptualism, Leuthold says that “Any art that makes reference to a historical tradition is conceptual in some way” (Leuthold 38).

To convey social criticism, mostly those quotes and borrowings that originally represented the major, criticized culture are used. Leuthold comments on this phenomenon on the example of the critique of mass-media and commercialization and industrialization of culture:

Though imitation is frowned upon, appropriation or "quoting" continues to take

place in a way that extends the conceptual approach. As Kaprow noted, parody

and quoting started with the Beats and in Pop art. Through the legacy of

conceptual art it became part of the method of Bruce Naumann, Sherrie Levine,

Cindy Sherman, and many others. The pervasiveness of artifice in appropriative

art has perhaps been the conceptualists' most enduring legacy. Appropriation,

direct copying, and parody act as a means of critiquing the mass reproduction of

images and the social interests served by the industrialization of mass culture.

(Leuthold 43)

This approach of mocking, quoting and intertextuality is used in a lot of sub- features that will be explored in the analyses of Hozer´s and Kruger´s works. One of them is for example the use of cultural symbols, icons and stereotypes universally known in a target culture and symbolizing a more general concept or a symptom of the society on which the artists aim their criticism. The roots of the use of symbols

that are familiar for the audience could be also seen in another defining feature of postmodern art - mixing of high and low culture. It is noticeable at the first sight that both Kruger and Holzer use many techniques and subjects that have their origins in the low art, such as comics or the features of advertisement.

Another feature of conceptual art social criticism closely connected with intertextuality and parody is a use of combination of image or another kind of visual presentation and textual message. Generally, the use of text and linguistic expression is one of the most notable features of conceptual art. Mostly, there is a certain tension between the two layers of the work that creates the effect of parody:

It is in this sense of depending upon a combination of text and visual

expression for ideological purposes that conceptual art is related to other

instrumentalist art forms. The political cartoons, advertisement, journalistic

photograph, photo essay, and so on, are all instrumentalist forms that seek to

persuade or inform us of an idea. Conceptual art often seems to rely similarly

upon a combination of linguistic concept and visual expression to “get

the idea across.” Even conceptual art that does not include text in a piece is

often dependent upon the written word, because the viewer must read

accompanying documentation to understand the meaning of the piece.

(Leuthold 45)

This use of combination of expressive features might be interpreted also in terms on tendencies heading towards the use of collage or bricolage in conceptual art.

Bearing in mind the philosophical background of postmodern era, the mixture of techniques and approaches toward art present in a single piece of art could be seen as a concept parallel to the philosophical and sociological concept of the promotion of diversity, in which the one and the whole is replaced by the fragmented and multiple.

Again, the mocking and parody play an important role here, as in the social critical art, the collage is used mostly to juxtapose multiple features that are not expected to appear together and construct them in the way in which they show in a new, different and nontraditional view.

1.3 Conceptual Art and Its Audience

Conceptual art (and postmodern art in general) is often criticized for not being accessible for a common viewer who is not educated in art and art history. Some of the critics claim that it is an elite art targeted only on intellectuals and that it lacks vivacity that art used to have in previous eras. However, when artists try to convey social criticism to their audience, they want it to be understandable and do it presumably with a wish to alter public opinion and provoke a public to thinking about the problems they address. Yet, this is not possible if the art is elitist and incomprehensible. Therefore, artists need to find ways by which they can speak to common spectators and catch their attention so that the spectatorship becomes sensitive towards this social criticism.

One of the ways, which is important for both artists covered in the thesis, is the presentation of their works in public spaces. They install their works in places in which the art is not generally expected and where it strikes people seemingly by chance.

In connection with the placing of art works in public space, also the notion that the placement itself is a very important factor constituting the overall meaning should not be omitted. Very often, conceptual work of art would lose its meaning, would it be placed somewhere else than it was originally meant to be. This idea is further developed and demonstrated in the chapter analyzing Jenny Holzer´s works.

Another important aspect of making conceptual work of art closer to the general public is the aforementioned use of generally known symbols, icons, stereotypes and forms and subversion of their meaning. Besides being connected with the idea of postmodernity itself in its wider sense and with the use of quoting, irony and pastiche, it also functions on the level of catching the attention. Moreover, a principle similar to Shklovskij´s concept of estrangement could be applied on the analysis of the use of cultural icons in conceptual art. It could be paralleled to

Shklovskij´s demand for poetry and for a literary language in general, to show well- known words and expressions in unexpected connotations:

In order to recover the feel of life, to feel things, to feel stone stony, there

exists that which is called art. The goal of art is to give feelings to a thing as

something seen, not as something recognized. The device of art is the device of

'estrangement' of things and the device of impeded form, which increases

the difficulty and length of perception since the process of perception in art is

an end in itself and must be prolonged .... Things perceived several times begin

to be perceived by recognition: the thing is before us, and we know this, but

we do not see it. Therefore we cannot say anything about it. The removal of

a thing from automization is accomplished in art in various ways. (Shklovskij

qtd in Rossbacher 1038-9)

Nevertheless, Shklovskij himself, in his later works, does not limit this concept only to literature, and he extends it to all kinds of arts and introduced also the term astonishment: “the open distance between ourselves and a phenomenon; it is criticism of a phenomenon, its evaluation” (Šklovskij qtd in Rossbacher 1040). This concept of estrangement leading to astonishment could be applied also to the works of postmodern artists working with stereotypes, bringing them back to life and trying to

point out their cores and, eventually, in the works dealing with social criticism, also the flaws in the concepts that are universally taken for granted.

Another perspective why the use of familiar objects and concepts used in new contexts and connotation may be attractive for artists to catch attention of their audience is the application of Freud’s psychoanalytical concept of the uncanny, according to which the feeling of uncanny, of a kind of distress, fear and respect may be brought by a connection of the familiar and unfamiliar - a feature quoted in the work of art is on the one hand well-known and on the other hand it is shifted in some of its aspects. As it is shown later in the thesis, Barbara Kruger works a lot with the concept of the uncanny and uses this unfamiliar familiarity to raise unpleasant feelings used to highlight some of the social problems she is concerned with.

The use of familiar icons could be extended also on familiar schemes.

The interconnection between mass media, mass culture and postmodern art has been already mentioned in preceding parts of the thesis. But it should also be added that postmodern artists often not only criticize the content presented by mass media, but they also often borrow from its forms, mainly from advertisements and commercials.

For sure, the use of these borrowings could be explained by the aforementioned strategy of mocking and parodying, but it is also important to be aware of the fact that postmodern artists who want to speak to wide masses of people and to strike them with his or her art, they must do it in the language and in forms that are understandable for the wide audience. It is undeniable that for contemporary audience advertisements and commercials are nowadays ones of the most understandable forms. If they should be looked at in the context of two preceding features of postmodern art, placement in public spaces and the work with cultural icons, this kind of form is one of the most suitable to incorporate both these features, as it is mostly

presented in public spaces and it works with cultural icons naturally.

Another feature by which postmodern art exercises its appeal to a general public and by which it conveys its social criticism and tries to activate people’s thinking is demonstrated mainly on the verbal level and it is the use of personal pronouns such as I, you, we, my and so on in the way which enables the viewer to identify with the statement. Both Barbara Kruger and Jenny Holzer use this kind of pronouns very often and the last chapter of the thesis focusing on the analyses of their works offers the interpretation of the way they use them in the representative works.

Now, it is more important to point out why pronouns as I/we/you appear so often and what functions they have. It has been already hinted upon, that the importance of identification plays a great role here. It could be attributed to another feature of postmodern era formulated by a great critic of postmodernity, Jean Baudrillard. He proposes a theory according to which nowadays people are so fed up with various concepts and representations of reality that they live in a kind of hyperreality which consists only of referents lacking real objects to which they refer: “substituting signs of the real for the real itself” (Baudrillard 343). This kind of life in hyperreality leads to a numbness of people who are no longer able to distinguish between what is real and what is fiction - reality and hyperreality merges and people are no longer able to take responsibility for real life events, as they do not feel any urge to change the reality which they view as a fiction. Therefore, social problems presented for example in news may seem as something distant from them, as a fictive world:

“Transgression and violence are less serious, for they only contest the distribution of the real” (Baudrillard 358). This numbness towards social problems presented in social critical artworks might be eliminated for example by the use of personal pronouns. By formulating verbal message as a first-person statement or addressing her

viewers directly by the pronoun you (such as Jenny Holzer´s truism “Protect me from what I want” or Barbara Kruger´s work called “Your gaze hits the side of my face”).

Therefore, the viewers are incorporated into the work directly and they are activated to think about the social critical problem not only on the level of observers but also on the level of figures that play a role in the social problem.

If all the introduced points are taken into consideration, social criticism delivered by conceptual art is, contrary to the popular belief that this kind of art cannot be approached by wide public, in fact targeted on the general public and a viewer whose interaction with the work is implicitly required by the work is a very important element here. This openness to common public is provided mainly by the placement of the work of art, by special use of personal pronouns, by the use of structures that are understandable also by those who are not engaged in the debate about the discourse of postmodern art and by the use of stereotypically known and easily recognized symbols and icons and because of that, in the analyses provided in the last chapter of this thesis, these issues will be focused on.

2. American context

So far, mainly theoretical background of social criticism in postmodern and conceptual art has been covered in the thesis. Yet, when analyzing social critical layer of art, one must take into consideration also concrete symptoms of society, its problems and atmosphere which became the core of the social criticism. This chapter focuses on the depiction of the specific situation from which the social criticism represented by Barbara Kruger and Jenny Holzer arises. Undoubtedly, inspirations of their works cannot be limited to events of one or two decades and they have been influenced by a more complex chain of historical events and moods in society, however, for purposes of this thesis it is essential to point out mainly the problems of the era of the 1980s when majority of their influential and best-known works was created. In the context of the thesis, it is not important to name specific historical events and their dates, thus the focus is put mainly on those aspects of the 1980s

American society that has already been foreshadowed in the first chapter as subversive to a dominant worldview, such as feminism, rights of the LGBT community and ethnical minorities, and criticism of consumerism, mass media, monopolization and so on.

2.1 The 1980s in the USA

At first, it is desirable to briefly sketch out in what mood the USA entered the 1980s. In the preceding decade, the 1970s, there was still something left from the 1960s cultural and social revolution that influenced all parts of the society.

The impact of the struggle for Civil Rights was showing and women rights were slowly acknowledged. In the 1960 and partly also in the 1970s, the popular values promoted by the Flower Revolution were altruism, free spirit and they were very idealistic As for the youth of the time, it was popular not to value education and profit as much as morals. Still, there was a prevailing opinion that high level of formal education brings about social disparity and at the time, inequality between social groups was criticized a lot. As John L Hammond puts it:

The affluent Flower Children, encouraged to believe that they could

accomplish whatever they wanted, demanded freedom from restrictive norms.

But they also demanded equal opportunity and a decent standard of living for

minority groups, and fuller democratic and communal participation in decision

making; they rejected wealth as the standard of social status. (Hammond 488)

However, during the 1970s the United States entered the time of economic recession and common people were not doing well. This was taken advantage of by

Republicans who used this situation to assert their conservative politics.

What seems to define the 1980s in the US are the changes in economy and, more than in other historical periods, the economy seems to influence all spheres of social life, such as preferences of people, their habits, their values and moral hierarchies. As Ronald Reagan was president throughout the most of the era (1981-

1989), the decade is characterized mainly by his politics and his attitudes. Reagan´s

Republican policy disapproved of the promotion of social benefits and economic equality throughout all the social layers of the society. In his economy, Reaganomics, taxes were brought down and the economic advantages were noticeably pro-business oriented. In this climate, the self-interest was promoted and social needs were pushed aback.

The hero of the time was a self-sufficient, successful young man, for whom the name yuppie (young urban professional) was introduced. Yuppies were depicted as those who

reject high taxes, social spending, and government regulation, the New Deal

economic agenda. But they are liberal on issues of personal freedom and

lifestyle, especially sexual and gender freedom: they support equal rights for

women; they reject restrictive sexual mores, and accordingly endorse

freedom of sexual preference and abortion rights. Finally, the media have

pictured yuppies as materialistic, but not out of economic insecurity; rather,

they are economically privileged and they take advantage of it. (Hammond

487-8)

In the book A People and a Nation: A History of the United States yuppies are, apart from their conservative preferences, characterized also by their focus on expensive brand goods. They are pictured as

ambitious and successful young Americans who worked hard in demanding

careers and who created an identifiable lifestyle defined by consumer goods:

BMW´s, Sub-Zero refrigerators, Armani suits, Haagen-Dazs ice cream.

Americans in the 1980s seemed fascinated with tales of the super-rich (...)

and with Yuppie lifestyle (...). But Yuppies also represented those who got

ahead without caring about those left behind. (Norton 939)

From both of these depictions, the materialism of this social group is readable very well. Materialism as a strong feature of the characteristic of a yuppie could be supported also by the quotation of Richard Lowy who says: “The term yuppie refers to young urban professionals who have acquired considerable amounts of money and who boast a lifestyle based upon consumption and status visibility” (Lowy 449).

Therefore, it is arguable that lives of many 1908s people were governed by the drive to acquire as much consumer goods that would help them define and illustrate their social status as possible. Hand in hand with the preference of materialistic goals went the way how people tried to accomplish them. Self-interest and self-promotion were highly acknowledged and the values switched from the ideals of the 1960s mentioned before to the values of success and comfort. This could be illustrated for example by the fact, that “´Greed is all right´ Wall street financer Ivan Boesky told students at the University of California (...) and he was met with cheers and laughter” (Norton

939). This obsession with wealth and well-being could be demonstrated also on the cultural icons of the 1980s such as Donald Trump or Dallas series. This tendency to value material possession and goods was, of course, supported also by the government, as it supported its market-oriented policy and economy.

Another feature by which the 1980s could be characterized is the rise of conservative Christianity:

Throughout the 1980s, the coalition of conservative Christians known as the

New Righ waged campaigns against America´s secular culture. Rejecting

the ideas associated with multiculturalism that different cultures and lifestyle

choices were equally valid, the New Right worked to establish what they

believed to be “God´s law” as the basis for American society. (Norton 936)

The rise of these conservative ideas, very closely connected with the right- wing oriented politics that was in charge in the 1980s is in a conflict with postmodern thinking. Therefore, as it undermined most of the liberal ideas enforced by the preceding generations, it had many opponents. Of course, there were also many supporters of this trend, as there seemed to be lot of threats arising from the free- spirited lifestyle, such as AIDS, which was a great, newly introduced threat in

the 1980s or use of drugs, mainly cocaine. Struggles between opponents and supporters of The New Right became known as “culture wars” and, undoubtedly, these struggles influenced artists of the time considerably.

Also the roots of promotion of feminism might be seen in the opposition to

The New Right, as they tried to reject not only multiculturalism, but they also fought against emancipation of women:

By 1985, more than half of married women with children under three worked

outside their home-many from economic necessity. The religious right’s

insistence that women’s place was in the home, subordinated to her husband,

contradicted not only the gains made toward sexual equality in American

society but also the reality of many women’s lives. (Norton 973)

In general, at the time, women were in a considerably stronger opposition to

Reagan’s politics than men. “The New York Times reported ´a gender gap´ between men’s and women’s opinions of Reagan’s performance in 1983: far fewer women (38 percent) than men (53 percent) believed Reagan deserved re-election” (Norton, 1046).

The reason for this could be seen mainly in his cuts in social welfare and cuts in issues concerning health care and education, but also in a strong “profamily” movement “which contended that men should lead and women should follow, especially within the family, and that women should stay home and raise children”

(Norton 1045). This turn back to traditional roles of women was for sure a strong impulse for (mainly female) artists to react on. However, undoubtedly, also other events drove artists to comment on the problems of feminism and its struggle in the 1980s. Apart from the fact that women were still not equal to men, for example in professional sphere, conservative politics of Reagan’s time did no support feminism at all. For example, in 1982 The Equal Rights Amendment failed to be ratified.

The ratification was unsuccessful mainly because prolife, antiabortionist movement was very strong at the time and the ERA was supposed to establish a greater liberty in this issue than there used to be before.

The interconnection between the feminism and the anti-Reagan’s movement is very important for the understanding of the analyses of Barbara Kruger’s and Jenny

Holzer´s work, as the two topics intervene very often in their works as it is shown later in the thesis.

The society was not polarized only in terms of struggle between feminists vs. antifeminists. Also a great disparity between social classes started to emerge at the time. The economic policy supported business and cut taxes, but at the same time it cut off social programs and support of the lower social classes. Therefore, the number of poor people increased and their living standards decreased considerably. “While the incomes of the bottom fifth of American families fell by 13 percent, the top fifth earned 27 percent more and the top 1 percent saw their incomes double” (Norton 1047). This was on the one hand a result of the economic policy and on the other hand a result of a changing structure of employment market. Thanks to the development of technology and increasing efficiency of the industrial production, a smaller number of blue-collar workers was needed and mainly white-collar workers and specialized professions requiring a higher qualification were wanted. This change of the market affected mainly black people, as most of them was not qualified to be employed at the positions of specialists such as bankers, managers, IT specialists and so on. Therefore, the main parts of the poorest class were black people: “The overall poverty rate was 13 percent by 1980, but the rate among blacks was 33 percent”

(Norton 1040). Therefore not only a gap between the black and the poor emerged, but there was also a significant gap between the people of color and white people. Some

scholars, such as Richard Lowy, argue that in the 1980s there came a resurgence of racism. In his article “Yuppie Racism” published in 1991, he says, that the racism in the 1980s is based on an individual as well as on institutional and structural level of the society. He claims that:

The resurgence of racism in the 1980s is reflected in incidents of racial

prejudice across the country, both in the media and on college campuses.

Racial violence is on the rise. Black studies, ethnic studies, and affirmative

action programs are under siege. And the emergence of yuppies during

the Reagan years highlights the structural distance between various upwardly

mobile groupings and today's Black underclass, which is increasingly the focus

and target of contemporary racist attack. (Lowy 446)

He also sees a reason for resurgence of racism in “a climate that is decidedly more conservative than that which, however grudgingly, produced landmark civil rights legislation” (Lowy 450) and so, again, he attributes the racism to the change of a social moods and the move of values from liberal attitudes of the 1960s and the first part of the 1970s to the conservative right.

To sum all the mentioned issues up, it could be argued that the critical attitudes toward the society problems of the 1980s all come down to the criticism of the shift of the values from the liberal attitudes of the 1960s promoting mainly moral standards and the acceptance of difference, multiculturalism and civil rights to the uptight conservative attitudes preferring mainly business growth, higher social classes and self-interest - values supported by the official American politics of the 1980s headed by president Ronald Reagan. Taking into consideration that artist promoting progressive art forms are generally more inclined to be a part of opposition than a part of official propaganda and, moreover, the artist of the 1980s were close

descendants of the artists working in the 1960s and, in addition to this, that the official policy was in many ways in opposition to the postmodern ideals, it is only natural that their social criticism was targeted against the conservative kind of life and the hierarchy of values it offered.

3. Analyses of Social Criticism in the Works of Barbara Kruger and Jenny

Holzer

In this chapter, the focus moves on to the analyses of Barbara Kruger and

Jenny Holzer, respectively. The openings of the subchapters are focused on the depiction of some of general tendencies in their works and the depiction of the particular art forms that were typical for these artists in the 1980s. The openings also introduce the aspects that will be considered in the analyses and explain why these particular aspects are relevant for the analyses of social criticism in Kruger´s and Holzer´s works. Then, the analyses focus on the social criticism in their work, taking into consideration general statements about postmodern art given in the first chapter. The analyses incorporate also the information given in the second chapter and the focus is put on the interpretation of the way in which the social atmosphere and problems of the 1980s were demonstrated in the Kroger´s and Holzer´s work.

3.1 Barbara Kruger

3.1.1 General Overview

The works of Barbara Kruger cover a whole range of art forms and artistic devices and her style has undergone many changes during her life. She has dealt with collages, video and audio installations, video clips and many other art forms, most of them combining texts and images in some way. The combination of visual and textual message is one of Kruger´s central working methods. However, as this thesis analyzes on the 1980s social criticism, the analysis focuses on special types of collages that became iconic for her 1980s work. The interconnection between the decade of

the 1980s and Kruger´s work was articulated by a curator of one of Kruger´s exhibitions, when she stated:

Although there is a lot of negativity toward the '80s, and [Kruger] is associated

with that decade, one must remember that it was an incredibly productive

decade driven by a number of women artists. She was one of the first women

to address representation and show that pictures and words have determined

how we are defined and confined. (Drohojowska-Philp)

The collages she worked with in the 1980s were mainly black and white photographs combined with red and white inscriptions superimposed on them (of course, this pattern is not uniform in all of her works of the time). The photographs she works with are taken from magazines and mass media, politics of which are very often the target of her critique. As Kruger claims: “I am working with representations, with pictures, pictures we have all grown up with in some ways, pictures that have dictated our desires that have dictated our appearances” (qtd. in Kamimura 41).

These pictures are very often altered compared to their original sources. To alter them, Kruger uses pop-art features and methods of manipulation with the image such as enlargement, focus on the detail, multiplication and so on. By altering of the images she makes people think about the way how images in general are apprehended today and then there opens a space for subversion of their meaning. As it is pointed out later in the thesis on particular examples, she also raises awareness of how people can be manipulated by pictures and vice versa, how pictures are manipulated by people, which is a part of the debate about the structure of power and manipulation, in which Kruger is deeply involved.

Kruger combines “recycled” pictures with the inscriptions that are either of her own invention or she quotes well-known phrases. The juxtaposition of pictures

and a textual layer leads to a change of the representation that is Kruger´s basic point and to a reappropriation of their meaning. The tension she creates between the text and the image becomes central for the understanding of the message of her works.

Masako Kamimura interprets this process as one of the basic features of social criticism in Kruger´s work. In one of her reviews on Kruger´s work, Kamimura says:

What Kruger does with her “selected” images and her own texts is to destroy

a certain order of representation; the task of her work (or one of the tasks) is

a political displacement of the traditional/dominant mode of representation,

a task she accomplishes through reappropriation - the radical and critical

transformation of someone else's image. (Kamimura 40)

It could be argued that one of Kruger´s basic aims is to destroy hegemonic view on issues she deals with and to present an alternative point of view. From this point of view of her work, Shklovskij´s concept of estrangement discussed in the first chapter of this thesis plays a great role. The pictures she works with are taken away from their natural surroundings and put into a new situation which makes people think about their meaning and identity. Naturally, as she works with the fragments of already existing works, also the concept of parody, quoting and intertextuality introduced in the first chapter needs to be taken into consideration in the interpretation of Kruger´s works.

It has already been mentioned in the first chapter that postmodern artists often use personal pronouns as I, you, we and they to connect with viewers and to make them interact with the work of art on a more personal level. It is important to point out that because Kruger uses these pronouns so often, it became a defining feature of her work. Kruger herself explains the frequent use of these pronouns similarly to the concept of viewer´s involvement, but she also specifies the reasons why she

personally uses them. She says that it is to underline the simplicity of her works that she aims for and according to Masako Kamimura, “it is also the device that makes the meaning of her work explicit and clear” (Kamimura 41). She wants the social criticism to be understandable to everyone: “I'm not interested in any of this complicit subversion trip - an implicit critique - that people talk about. The critique in my work is fairly explicit; you don't have to read three essays by Doug Crimp1 to understand what my work is saying” (Kruger qtd in Kamimura 41). There are also other ways of interpretation of the use of the pronouns in Kruger´s work and some of them will be discussed later in the analysis of respective problems she deals with in her work, for example in the part dealing with feminist critique in her works.

Another feature of Kruger´s work that should be pointed out is the use of advertising strategies she incorporates into her works. Similarly to the use of the personal pronouns discussed above, she uses these strategies to get closer to the viewer of her works. As it is explained in the first chapter, for artists who are involved in the social criticism it is important to make their works apprehensible and approachable for general public and Kruger is not an exception from this. She says:

“Basically, in order for these images and words to do their work they have to catch the eye of the spectator” (Kruger 438). Later on she comments also on the way how she uses the formal elements of commercials and mass media to which today´s viewers are used to and therefore they can read them easily, and she also mentions how she gives the pictures and slogans used in advertising a meaning that she thinks is lost: "What the media have done today is make a thing meaningless through its accessibility. And what I'm interested in is taking that accessibility and making meaning. I'm interested in dealing with complexity." (Kruger 448) Consequently,

1 Douglas Crimp is a renowned professor of art history and theory. 32

when interpreting her works from the point of cultural criticism, it should be always taken into consideration that Kruger not only uses these pictures because they are readable but through their use and the shift of their meaning she deliberately and consciously criticizes the influence and conception of the media from which the pictures were taken and that this borrowing is not a lack of invention or skill but it is a social critical statement of its own.

Another important feature of Kruger´s work that should be mentioned here is the use of various philosophical and theoretical concepts. So far, only the fact that she tries to make her works understandable to the general public to communicate her attitudes toward the society was mentioned. However, it is important to point out that

Kruger herself is a teacher of art who is familiar with many concepts of modern and postmodern art, its theory and leading art philosophers, and in the interviews2 she mentions various theoreticians very frequently, therefore, although she tries to appropriate her works to a common spectator, it is legitimate to suppose that she not only knows about theories of (mainly postmodern) art but that she also incorporates them into her works. For example, her works Untitled (“Your Gaze Hits the Side of

My Face”) seems to be a quotation of Laura Mulvey´s theory of male gaze and when interpreting her own work Untitled (“You are not yourself”) in which this text is superimposed to a broken mirror with a fragmented portrait, Kruger admits, that one of the impulses she was inspired by was Lacan´s theory of the mirror stage (Kruger

441). Therefore, if a thorough analysis of the social criticism in her work is to be provided, the possibility of the use of some of the well-known theories should be taken into consideration and then incorporated into the analysis.

2 See for example W.J.T. Mitchell´s Interview with Barbara Kruger quoted above. 33

3.1.2 Feminism

Feminism and feminist social critique are among the main areas of social

criticism in Barbara Kruger´s work. She does not like labeling of her work in any way

except for feminism and she even characterizes her work as “a series of attempts to

ruin certain representations, to displace the subject and to welcome a female spectator

into the audience of men” (Kruger qtd in Kamimura 40). Most of the feminist critics

even claim, that the use of personal pronouns in her work is “the device that

encourages female spectatorship” (Kamimura 41). This claim seems to be a little

exaggerated, as on some pictures the gender of the pronoun cannot be interpreted in

such a unilateral way. However, for sure, in some cases it is used to draw a line

between male and female spectatorship. This

could be demonstrated for example on

the work that is nowadays considered a piece

of canonical feminist visual art, on the picture

Untitled (“Your Body is a Battleground”) (see

Fig.1). As it was already pointed out in

the second chapter of this thesis, one of

the main aims of the feminist movement in Figure 1: Untitled ("Your Body is a Battleground") the 1980s was a pro-choice movement trying

to make abortions legal, fighting against Conservatives and various religious groups.

The picture Untitled (“Your Body is a Battleground”) was designed for March on

Washington that took place in 1989 and that was organized to support women's rights

and the abortion-rights movement. Taking into consideration the purpose for which it

was created and also the structure of the picture that shows a woman face on which

the inscription “Your body is a battleground” is placed, it is obvious that the “your” in

the text refers to women. In the context of the anti-abortion movement, the picture could be interpreted as a critique of the fact that the right to make decisions about women´s body is used to back up the fight for political interests and to a promotion of certain political views. Also the word battleground could be interpreted as a highlighting of the juxtaposition between male and female world, as the battleground is generally perceived as a place that is dominated mainly by men.

Nevertheless, the picture could be interpreted also in other ways and in a wider context than is the pro-choice movement. As the woman´s face is divided symmetrically to two parts by a horizontal line, the left side being a positive and the right part a negative of the photograph and it is divided also to three parts by a horizontal structuring of the text, the message of the picture could be read also as a critique of the demands on a symmetry and a perfection of woman´s body that male- dominated society creates and propagates. This way of reading could be backed up and complemented also by the fact that the picture seems to be taken from a beauty magazine that promotes these requirements on female beauty and therefore it could be read also as a critique of this kind of media (the importance of which is discussed in the previous subchapter). Moreover, Kruger allowed this picture to be used for a propagation campaign as postcards and posters with the text “Support Abortion,

Birth Control, and Women´s Rights” and so, also the aspect of the placement of the picture and its distribution in public (also discussed in the previous subchapter) is incorporated into this work.

The criticism of the standardization of female beauty and its monopolization is addressed in a number of Kruger´s works. As an example illustrating the rules imposed on female beauty given above is Untitled (“Super Rich, Ultra Gorgeous,

Extra Skinny Forever Young”) could be stated (although it was created in the 1990s).

In this piece of Kruger´s work the words

are superimposed to a picture of

a beautiful woman whose face is covered

(or sunk into) the ice cubes. Taking into

consideration that ice is used either to

anaesthetize a body that is hurt in some

way or to preserve a dead body from

Figure 2: Untitled (Super Rich, Ultra Gorgeus, decay, which connotes its lifelessness or Forever Young) paralysis. Moreover, the woman´s face is covered with a leather mask and her eyes are lifelessly pointed at some point outside of the picture therefore, she seems to be a passive object rather than an active subject. The ice cubes evoke unanimity and unnatural preservation of her beauty and this is supported also by the text stating the values that could be interpreted as the conditions by which women are judged. It is also noticeable that in this picture the woman is a passive element onto which the aspects of the theory of the uncanny in Freud´s terms, which was already mentioned in the first chapter - it is both alive and inanimate at the same time, which produces a disturbing effect on the viewer. Kruger uses this principle of unanimity and uncanny in more of her works, probably to point out that women are becoming a puppets and tools in the hands of men. As well as the picture analyzed before, this one also deals with inequality between male and female power. Coming back to what was said about the 1980s tendencies heading toward cutting off the female independence and toward the return to the model of a traditional family with a dominant male, these pictures of objectified women could be interpreted also as a protest against this view.

Also the involvement of the church and religion into this debate mentioned in

the second chapter is incorporated into Kruger´s critique. For example, the work Untitled (“We Are

All That Heaven Allows”) (see Fig. 3) seems to address this issue. The inscription is put on the picture of a female ballet dancer. Over her head, there is what seems to be a source of light emitting its rays in the curved lines all over the picture, which not only gives the picture its rhythm but it also seems to form the ballet dancer into her pose. Figure 3: Untitled ("We Are All That This light could be seen as a divine light, Heaven Allows Us") symbolizing God and his almighty power but also the enlightenment that religion offers. Considering the archetypal association connected with the figure of ballet

dancer, it can represent the vulnerable and fragile

symbol of womanhood. Furthermore, the ballet

dancers are associated with a great drill and certain

artificiality. In combination with the forming light

from above that seems to tie the ballet dancer into

the unnatural and artificial pose, the work can be

understood as a religious manipulation of women

reacting on the religious movement promoting

subordination of women to men. The topic of putting Figure 4: Untitled ("Your Gaze Hits the Side of My Face") women into the position of objects is probably the best observable in the work Untitled (“Your Gaze Hits The Side of My Face”)

(See Fig. 4). In the picture behind the text, there is a face of a statue. Whereas in other cases, women were represented by seemingly inanimate figures, now the symbol is

not objectified, it is the object itself.

The anti-life, anti-movement function of this terminal point is the fascinum

[what Lacan calls the evil eye of the gaze], and it is precisely one of

the dimensions in which the power of the gaze is exercised directly. Thus,

the woman here is at her most vulnerable and most powerless; the power of

a male gaze is exercised directly. (Kamimura 41)

As it is hinted upon earlier in the thesis, not only Lacan´s theory of gaze could be applied to the interpretation of this work, but also Laura Mulvey´s understanding of the gaze has definitely its place here. Even though Mulvey applies the term “male gaze” mainly on the interpretation of cinema, its use can be undoubtedly extended also to the analyses of visual art. Mulvey writes:

In a world ordered by sexual imbalance, pleasure in looking has been split

between active/male and passive/female. The determining male gaze projects

its phantasy on to the female form which is styled accordingly. In their

traditional exhibitionist role women are simultaneously looked at and

displayed. (Mulvey 11)

Kruger adopts this view and in this context Untitled (“Your Gaze Hits the Side of My Face”) exemplifies not only the position of women as a bearer of the look, but using the word hit, she also highlights the violence of this act destroying women´s individual identity, comparing the gaze to a slap. By the use of the picture of a marble statue, she points at the objectification of women and the monopoly of patriarchal power again.

Undoubtedly, more examples of the feminist social critique could be found in

Barbara Kruger´s work. To be more precise, there are not many of her works that do not incorporate the feminist point of view, but because of the extent of the thesis, it is

not possible to analyze them all. Yet, from what has been said above, it could be concluded, that feminist critique that Barbara Kruger uses in her works, is generally based on the critique of the inequality of power between men and women, and the critique of the manipulation with women and their subordination to the rules they did not created themselves. In the context of the 1980s, this is a perfectly clear statement against the conservative and religious policy trying to eliminate women´s rights as for example the right to abortion and they attempts to revive the model of a traditional family in which the male figure is the dominant power whereas the female figure should be the subordinate one.

3.1.3 Power, Control and Manipulation

As pointed out in the part dealing with feminism in Barbara Kruger´s works, in the 1980s Kruger protested against the values and policy of religious and conservative groups. As it is depicted earlier in the thesis, in the 1980s, the religious groups and conservative political wing that were very closely interconnected set up a social discourse of the time very dominantly and the manipulation of people using traditional values, Christian morality on the one hand and greed for material possessions on the other hand governed the society. The example of the critique of the manipulation by religious forces and groups was shown on the work Untitled

(“We Become Everything Heaven Allows Us”) piece but Kruger works with the manipulation also in the more extended sense.

Another work dealing with the problem of manipulation is the piece called

Untitled (“Your comfort is my silence”) (see Fig. 5). In the picture, there is a man with a hat making a gesture to be quiet and over his face, there is the text placed.

The man is hidden in the shade and his eyes are covered by the text “Your comfort”,

therefore he is anonymous and thanks to the position of the power demonstrated by the gesture by which he is commanding the viewer it could be read as a representation of oppressive figures and figures of dominance. What is also an important aspect of the picture is the resemblance of the man to the characters of the gangster movies that connotes breaking of the law. Thanks to the use of personal Figure 5: Untitled ("Your Comfort pronouns, the spectator cannot be sure who is my silence") the addressor is and who is the addressee of the quote. The man in the picture can be interpreted as an addressor of the message and the spectator as its addressee. This would mean that the man as a symbol of dominance and oppression shows how dangerous it can be for those who are subordinate to him if he had a reason to speak up and that the spectator’s aim should be to keep him quiet. The second possible interpretation is that the addressee is the man in the picture and therefore the spectator is in the position of the silenced one. No matter which interpretation is considered, as long as the spectator does not speak, there is no need for confrontation with the power. In the wider context of the 1980s and the postmodern theories introduced in the first chapter, this could be seen as a parallel to the tension between universal truths and metanarratives enforced by the groups that possess the power and the alternative narratives challenging traditional views.

The concept of the call for the destruction of the metanarratives could be also applied to the interpretation of the piece called Untitled (“We Don´t Need Another

Hero”) (see Fig. 6). It can be understood as directly referring to Lyotard´s theory according to which in the postmodern era “the narrative function is losing its

functions, its great hero, its great dangers, its great voyages, its great goal” (Seidman 27). The statement

“We don´t need another hero” can therefore be seen as a symbol for the refusal of great manipulative theories presenting a single universal Figure 6: Untitled ("We Don´t need another hero") truth promoted by its heroes. However, this picture offers multiple layers of the critique of manipulation. The hero could be associated also with a more concrete concept of war heroes, as the photo that is used resembles the 1950s conscription advertisements and agitations. What makes it especially appealing is the use of children that commonly according to the western world discourse should be protected from military actions. Thus, the piece could be interpreted also as a protest against militarism and glorification of military actions and against the presentation of wars as an opportunity to become socially respected and acknowledged.

The critique of manipulation is explicitly articulated also in the work Untitled

(“Repeat After Me”) (see Fig. 7). Similarly to a number of Kruger´s works, this one also uses a picture of a toy, of an inanimate object. As it was pointed out in the previous section of the thesis, in her works and also in her commentaries to them, Kruger is strongly opposed to the objectification of any kind. In this work, double objectification can be found, at first, although the toy to which the “Repeat after Figure 7: Untitled ("Repeat After Me") me” belongs is used as a subject that is trying to manipulate the spectator by

the hypnotizing ornament, it is in fact the object,

something that needs to be manipulated itself. Therefore,

the relativity of objectification and manipulation created

by the use of an inanimate object as a representation of

the manipulator poses questions asking who

the manipulator and the manipulated ones are. Similar

principle can be found also in the work Untitled (“Our

Leader”) that shows the face of a wooden puppet with

Figure 8: Untitled ("Our moveable mouth. Just as in the previous case, here again Leader) the one to whom is given the label "Our Leader" must be led by someone else which provokes a debate of the authenticity of power and its representation. In the context of the 1980s, this could be interpreted as a critique of the interconnectedness between economic powers, power of religious groups and policy of Republicans that was depicted in the second chapter.

It is also important to point out that

Kruger does not criticize only one side of the opposition of manipulator versus manipulated. In her highly ironic piece called

Untitled (“Don´t Be a Jerk”) (see Fig. 9) she Figure 9: Untitled ("Don´t Be a Jerk") addresses the manipulated ones and by confronting the slogan with a picture of a crowd in which the faces are not recognizable she hints upon the lack of individuality and the influence on masses.

As it can be seen from the analyzed works, Kruger applies the critique of manipulation in a wide range. Basically in all of the examples presented above she plays with the notion of power and its distribution, authenticity and its misuse. Very

often the pictures can be interpreted as a critique of a special kind of control (military, religious, anonymous, etc.)

3.1.4 Consumerism and commodification

Consumerism, materialism and commodification are also great topics of

Kruger´s criticism. Similarly to the topic of manipulation and control, it can be also interconnected with the topic of feminism discussed earlier in the thesis on the example of the objectification of women. However, in this case Kruger transgresses the boundary of primacy of feminism and it could be argued that over the years consumerism became almost equally important in her work as feminism is.

In the second chapter, reasons for the raise of materialism and consumerism in the 1980s and its consequences were depicted and also the image of prosperous young professionals, yuppies, was given. In Kruger´s work reactions on this tendency to put material values on the top of the value system can be found in many pieces she created during the 1980s. The piece Untitled (“I Shop

Therefore I Am”) (see Fig. 10) became similarly to the Untitled (“Your Body is a Battleground”) a canonical work. In this case, the text and visual layer of the work get into a different relationship than in the pieces Figure 10: Untitled (" I Shop Therefore I Am") analyzed so far. She incorporates the text right into the picture: there is a male hand holding a card on which the text is written. Clearly, the text is a modification of

Descartes´s quote “I think therefore I am”. The first point that should be mentioned here is the switch of the words, in which the thinking is replaced by shopping, which

mirrors the switch of the values and uncovers the priorities that determine people´s lives. Moreover, this piece resembles advertising strategies even more than other

Kruger’s work and it has a particular meaning in this piece. As Alan Foljambe claims in connection with the interpretation of this piece of art,

the indoctrination of this philosophy (materialistic) into the public mind is

done primarily through visual imagery, in television, billboards, magazine

advertisement and other public displays. The system of consumption coopts

the instinctive human pleasure in looking (Freud´s “scopophilia”), and bends it

toward the urge to possess. (Foljambe 5)

Therefore by appropriation of the tools of the media that are partly responsible for the spreading of this worldview, she provides the criticism of the media as well as the criticism of the worldview itself. Also commodification of signs and Baudrillard´s concept of simulacra presented in the first chapter might be used to interpret the piece.

Would the Untitled (“I Shop Therefore I Am”) be a real advertisement, it would not sell anything real just a construct of one´s identity.

Similar reaction to the consumerism of

the 1980s is also the work called Untitled (“Buy Me

I´ll Change Your Life”). This piece of work shows

a very unpleasantly looking toy staring at

the spectator. The picture is superimposed by

the huge word “Buy Me” and a smaller additional

line that is noticed only after the detailed inspection

of the image stating “I´ll change your life”.

Figure 11: Untitled ("Buy Me I´ll The inscription could be seen as a universal Change Your Life") advertisement slogan because advertisement is

basically built on the promise that the product being sold will improve our life. But in the context of the picture, the change of life would be the most probably negative, as the object in the picture looks considerably scary. There is also a notion of violence in this picture, as the toy is deformed by the hand that is grabbing it. Similarly to the previous picture, this one also reacts on the desire that advertising and consumerism encourages and it symbolically shows its destructive effects.

The use of the macabre effect can be found also in another picture dealing with obsession with acquirement of commodities, the piece called Untitled (“Our

Prizes Are Insane”) (see Fig. 12). The meaning of the picture is again created by the interaction of its textual and visual layer. The textual layer could, as it was mentioned before in case of other pictures, be used as a genuine advertising slogan, yet its meaning is shifted by the picture that strongly resembles a horror movie showing a man who seems to be in Figure 12: Untitled ("Our Prizes Are Insane!") a great danger. In the text, the ambiguity of the message is stressed out and the negative connotations are promoted.

Also the piece Untitled (“Money Can Buy You

Love”) (see Fig. 13) could be included into this category of social critical works focusing on the critique of materialism. The text is placed over the picture of a young grinning girl. What should be taken into consideration here is the size of the letter of the used words. It is very noticeable that two words Figure 13: Untitled ("Money Can Buy You Love") from the inscription, money and love, are bigger than the others and therefore they are

highlighted and special focus is put on them. At the same time, these two words are put into a juxtaposition which could be interpreted as Kruger´s attempt to point out to the changing values. The inscription is, comparably to the “I Shop Therefore I Am”, a modification of a well-known quotation and again, it could be read in a similar way.

By taking a notoriously known quote that functions in a society for a long time and that is a representative of certain values, and changing it an uncanny effect is created, balancing between something very familiar and slightly changed that as a result of the change becomes unfamiliar and thus disturbing. The disturbing atmosphere of the picture is underlined also by the fact that the text is combined with the picture of a little girl, who by general standards should be associated with an innocence, morality and maintaining of values. However, the girl in the picture has a strange grin upon her face and if the spectator assumes that the slogan “belongs” to her, it means that the quote representing the change of morality is interconnected with the part of the society in which the innocence is supposed to be preserved, therefore, the new, uncanny morals are part of the innermost parts of social structures.

Similar strategies that were described above could be discerned also to a number of works concerning specifically commodification of culture and art world, such as Untitled (“When I Hear Word Culture I Take Out My Checkbook”) or

Untitled (“You Invest in the Divinity of the Masterpiece”) and so on. However, although these works offer a rich material for analysis and Kruger´s use of

Baudrillard´s ideas could be illustrated here into a deeper detail, as the topic of this thesis is social criticism in general there is not enough space to cover them in an in- depth analysis.

Nonetheless, it can be concluded that the criticism of materialism, commodification and obsession with wealth that sprang out in the American middle

and upper class of the 1980s with a great force is a strong aspect in Kruger´s work. In general, she tries to exemplify how dangerous this shift of values is by the use of familiar objects and phrases that normally have positive connotations and shifts them so they appear strangely unfamiliar and she reaches the disturbing effect of uncanny.

What is more, she simultaneously works with the critique of the media that promote the values of materialism and consumerism. Again, she uses the principle of appropriation and shift of meaning and by this she points out the manipulations of the original media.

3.2 Jenny Holzer

3.2.1 General Overview

Jenny Holzer´s works range through various forms of artistic expressions and for the purpose of this thesis it does not have to be covered in its full extent. However, it is important to mention some of the main tendencies reappearing in her work to be able to analyze the social criticism of her 1980s work in a more complex way and to understand why in the analysis particular features and aspects are focused on.

The depiction of a general overview of her works is also important for the understanding of the continuity of social criticism in her works because, unlike

Barbara Kruger, Jenny Holzer changes her way of social critical expression considerably and even during the 1980s she employs various modes of expression.

The works of Jenny Holzer mostly oscillate between a textual expression and a visual expression and although she is defined mostly as a visual artist, text and literariness play an important role in all of her works. In his piece trying to legitimize postmodern art, Michael E. Parks even jokingly hints on the problems with characteristics of Holzer´s art. He writes: “How can the wordworks of Joseph Kosuth

and Jenny Holzer be considered visual art when they do not possess the traditional prerequisites associated with pictures?” (Parks 13). Holzer´s works were even published as a book, deprived of their original aesthetic or visual format.

At the beginning of her work with textual expression, she incorporated texts into her abstract paintings. Later on, when she moved to New York and was influenced by art forms such as street art and presentation art that were placed into public space, she started to focus on the way of presentation of her works. The best known part of her work and also a part she comes back to and recycles and reuses the most often is a project called Truisms. Truisms were numbers of quotes structured in a very specific way that she at first, at the end of the 1970s, started to distribute throughout New York as posters and she pinned them on the walls. Later on she moved on to a more visible mode of presentation and she started to use and explore the possibilities of the use of the advertising features. She started to use LED light boards and billboards and flash the truisms at the places where advertising was a natural part of the milieu. According to Holzer herself, she wanted to confront people at the places, where art is not commonly used and she also wanted to use the channels that are understandable for people (Mueller). However, there are more aspects of her use of LED lights and LED tables, as this medium enables her to work also with rhythmical and temporal aspects of the text, so that the written text acquires also some of the prosodic characteristics of speech and therefore it is more natural and more communicative. The most notable place where her truisms appeared was on the billboard at Times Square. The use of modern technologies is important for

Holzer´s work not only from the technological and aesthetic point of view. She says:

“The move to electronic technology had to do with my needing to be where people look. I thought I should present many hard germane subjects as well, as large, and as

loud as what´s done for celebrity gossip” (Holzer qtd in Ritter). Thus, it can be said that the medium through which she speaks should be taken into consideration not only from the aesthetic point of view (for example on the level on which the difference between aquarelle and oil paint) is considered, but as the artist herself connects the medium with a certain ideology and cultural status, its re-appropriation should be interpreted in a broader context of the social use of the medium.

In the later part of her career she started to use also light projections, when she screened her truism and similar textual fragments on various important buildings and natural sights. She also created a number of exhibitions that were designed specifically for the museums and galleries where they were exhibited (for example her installation in Guggenheim´s museum in 1989), therefore her art can be perceived as a distinctively site-specific and the places she created her works for need to be taken into consideration in the analysis, as they complete the meaning of her artworks.

Another important aspect that is analyzed is the text, mainly its style and the voice Holzer employs in her works. The textual message itself can´t be avoided in the analysis because the language is the central medium by which she communicates with viewers. Some critics even assume that the language is the only channel through which she conveys her messages:

Holzer uses language to communicate her thoughts. (...) She relies on the

text alone. Although she attempted painting in school and at the beginning of

her carrier, Holzer soon found out she is more fascinated with communication

through language, which could convey the message painting could not. She did

not think she could make effective narrative paintings and wanted a way to

express her thoughts. (Drozdek)

Although the point about the great importance of the textual layer in Holzer´s

work is undoubtedly valid, the claim that Drozdek makes about the inability to express her thoughts in other ways is highly questionable. Holzer´s inclination towards textual expression could rather be interpreted by the fact that was already mentioned above (and also in the first chapter, in the part dealing with the tendencies of social critical art to use highly communicative and accessible modes of expressions) - that she wants her works to be understandable and approachable to the general public, as it is the only way how the criticism incorporated into her works can achieve its goals. Nonetheless, it should not be forgotten that in addition to working with words, she also uses ways of transmitting the textual messages that cover a whole range of channels including tattoos, engravings into marble benches and memorials, advertising sites such as mugs, T-shirts and billboards, LED lights and light projections. Sometimes she even works with the text in a very minimalistic ways such as exhibition of censored military documents in which only few words remain uncovered. In short, she employs the concept of language and also medium of its deliverance to spectators in a very rich range. Therefore, although it is important to analyze the textual message in Holzer´s work, it would be very short-sighted not to do that in the context of the channel through which this message is conveyed to the viewer and the placement of her work.

As it is impossible to cover all Holzer´s work of the 1980s, in this thesis the focus is put mainly on the aforementioned project Truisms. This project started already in the late 1970s as a series of printed posters with short aphorism-like sentences placed in various quarters of New York. However, Holzer was working with these texts during the whole 1980s in different contexts and places (she even used them more than a decade after their first appearance at the Guggenheim exhibition in 1989) and therefore, it is perfectly legitimate to interpret them in

the context of the 1980s. Nonetheless it is important to depict the principle on which

Truisms of pre-1980s era worked, as it is important for their overall understanding. As it was already mentioned, Holzer distributed the truisms among people by means of printed posters fastened on walls of New York streets and she applies the principle used in more of her works that was described by Hal Foster as follows:

Holzer treats the public space, social representation or artistic language in

which she intervenes as both a target and a weapon. This shift in practice

entails a shift in position: the artist becomes a manipulator of signs more than

a producer of art objects, and the viewer an active reader of messages rather

than a passive contemplator of the aesthetic or consumer of the spectacular.

(Foster Recording: Art, Spectacle, Cultural Politics 100)

Having in mind this point, the analysis of Truisms is partly based on the manipulation of signs and meaning with which Holzer works and also the way how she accomplishes the activation of the spectatorship. This could be demonstrated for example on the fact that when Truisms were first distributed into public space, people were writing their comments and observations on them and therefore, they entered the dialogue with the artist actively. Apart from this, she promoted the idea of an active spectator also by her project called Sign on a Truck (1984). This was a collaborative project realized in cooperation with more artists. It

was designed to provide, during the last days of the 1984 presidential

campaign, an occasion of public dialogue. Consisting of and 18´ x 13´

television screen positioned the work in Grand Army Plaza in New York

City. The general public, as they passed by, were invited to appear "live" on

screen and state their views on the election. (Sayre 202-3)

The live broadcasting was completed by Holzer´s truisms that gave a certain

legacy and authority to the speeches of public. Therefore, it can be concluded that for

Holzer the cooperation with the public and a deliberate activation of the spectator is an important feature of her work and it should not be left out from the analysis.

Summing up the points made in the general overview of Holzer´s work, there arise some aspects that form meanings of her works and these meaning-creating aspects should be focused on in the analysis of her works. They are mainly the textual layer, involving the semantic meaning, the occurrence and placement of the works, the way in which the works communicate with its spectator and his activation and the medium through which they are presented.

3.2.2 Manipulation and Ideological Hegemony

In Holzer´s work manipulation is referred to in various forms and ways and during the course of her art life, she created also some projects focused solely on the critique of manipulation. As an example the exhibition of the censored documents that was already mentioned earlier could be stated. Nonetheless, this line of critique can be found also in her early work from the 1980s, in Truisms.

The first layer in which the critique of manipulation in the Truisms could be found is their semantic layer, as the sentences she uses directly mention manipulation or silencing. These include for example Truisms such as “a strong sense of duty imprisons you”, “abuse of power comes as no surprise”, “ambition is just as dangerous as complacency”, “ambivalence can ruin your life” or “don´t place too much trust in experts” (Holzer).

The second layer addressing the topic of manipulation is less direct and resides more in the artistic strategy than in the presented content. As it can be seen from the examples stated above, Holzer does not present only one viewpoint in her work

but she tries to present statements that could be placed into the opposite sides of the spectrum of opinions. For example, on the one hand, there is a statement saying that “a strong sense of duty imprisons you”, which promotes liberal thinking placing the focus more onto an individual experience and the needs of individuals than onto a duty towards someone else. On the other hand, there is a statement “ambivalence can ruin your life” that could be interpreted as a call for unification and wiping away all that is not done not in a regulated way, which is a viewpoint promoting authority over the individuality. The strategy employed here is not to state “the right” viewpoint or promote the universal truth, but rather to point out the fact that there is a multiplicity of opinions. By juxtaposing them in the range of a single work, Kruger also gently pushes her spectators towards the evaluation of respective phrases and unlike manipulative discourses that force the public to believe only a single legitimate truth without its critical interpretation, she makes her spectators articulate their own points of views. Therefore, by the method of mixing various attitudes, she presents a natural possibility of choice, which could be read as a reaction against the promotion of ideological hegemony. This could be also interpreted in terms of

Derrida´s theory of deconstruction of oppositional pairs which, as it was hinted upon in the first chapter, suppose that one of the pair is superior to the other one. Applied on Truisms and what they represent, the use of various standpoints could in terms of deconstruction be read as an attack on the authoritarian assertion of a single valid truth. In the context of the 1980s, this statement could be interpreted as a protest against the aforementioned promotion of conservative policy and opinions supported by the government and conservative religious groups. Apart from the strategies used in this work and apart from the atmosphere that was in the artistic circles of the early

1980s, the point that Truisms were left-oriented and aimed to criticize the right wing

of political spectrum, could be supported also by the argument Jenni Drozdek makes about the political identity of Truisms. Not only she says that left-oriented truisms

(such as “any surplus is immoral”, “class structure is as artificial as plastic”,

“everyone’s work is equally important”, “it’s not good to operate on credit”, “raise boys and girls the same way”, “redistributing wealth is imperative”, “using force to stop force is absurd”, or “private property created crime”) outnumber the right- oriented ones, she also states that:

The right-wing truisms, most of them fascist, possess a tone that is much more

malicious than her leftist statements: "Absolute submission can be a form of

freedom", "Freedom is a luxury not a necessity", "Killing is unavoidable but

nothing to be proud of", "Most people are not fit to rule themselves",

"Occasionally principles are more value than people", (...) "Sex differences are

here to stay" (...) and "The idea of revolution is an adolescent fantasy." This

must be more that coincidence, as they reflect tyrannical positions the Left

often associates with the Right. (Drozdek)

Therefore, it could be concluded that although Holzer claims that in her truisms she "wanted to highlight those thoughts and topics that polarize people, but not choose sides and she was trying to present a fairly accurate survey and not have it break down into the left, right, center, or religious versus anarchists" (Holzer qtd in

Drozdek), in the context of the 1980s she arguably stands against the major right-wing policy and against the promotion of its conservative views and attitudes.

3.2.4 Mass media and Consumerism

The topic of manipulation in Holzer´s work is closely connected with the critique of mass-media and consumerism. In this case, the central aspect of

Holzer´s work in which the critique of media appears is the media through which her pieces are delivered. Considering the evolution of her presentation starting as posters distributed throughout New York, towards large-scale LED billboards depicted in the introduction to this subchapter, one can see the shift towards more monumental effect and her works reach a bigger number of spectators. It was already pointed out that for Holzer it is very important to speak to a numerous audience to achieve her goals and activate as big part of the society as possible and that the use of electronic signs also enabled her to apply the rhythmical variations that poster do not, so that the change of medium could be explained this way. However, it should not be forgotten that in the context of the 1980s and the rise of consumerism at the time depicted in the second chapter made LED billboards highly recognizable and symptomatic for advertising strategies. Moreover, also the placement of the billboards should be taken into consideration. The most notable place where Truisms shown on billboards appeared was Time´s Square, which could be considered an iconic place, where advertisements and various billboards have their unquestionable place.

The placement of the texts that did not belong into the sphere of advertising into the places reserved for that kind of texts pointed out to the problem of the possession of public space and its manipulation by ideological hegemony. Figure 14: Untitled ("Protect Me From What Moreover, some of the statements such as I Want")

“money creates taste” presented this way were dealing with the consumerism directly.

Some of them, although they were very general on their own, in the combination and its placements acquired the anti-materialistic and anti-consumerist meaning.

An example of such a shift the most popular piece photography of which accompanies lot of texts about Jenny Holzer is the truism "Protect me from what I want" flashing on a big light board on the Times Square (see Fig 14). It creates an interesting juxtaposition using the tools of the advertising that should provoke the desire for the object it is selling and on the other hand problematizing this desire and establishing the need for a protection from it. Being placed in the middle of other flashing advertisements in addition to the use of the anonymous first person the truism creates the effect as if the advertising strategies were attacked from their inner structure and therefore, the critique is more striking.

Another aspect of the use of LED boards is pointed out by Kruger herself and it could be also viewed as a part of critique of consumerism. Alongside with her explanation of the use of electronic media for their resemblance of advertising strategies, she also highlights their similarity to another institution associated with the rise of market economy that resulted in the consumerism:

I was interested in the efficiency of signs as well as in the kind of shock value

the signs have when programmed with my peculiar material. These signs are

used for advertising and they are used in banks. I thought it would be

interesting to put different subjects, kind of skewed content in this format.

(Holzer qtd in Sayre 202)

In this argumentation, the similarity of her works with tables showing exchange rates in the banks is pointed out, which brings another interpretation into mind. She re-appropriates the medium by changing the information that these tables convey, and therefore the original and the new information get into a contrasted relationship. On the one hand, there are monetary values, for promotion of which the 1980s conservative politics were criticized and on the other hand, there are

statements addressing non-economical values. Their interchangeability in range of one medium evokes their interchangeability (or at least their closeness) in the real life

– the issue for which the Rageanomics was often criticized and the issue that was frequently focused on in the social criticism conveyed by intellectual and art world of the time.

Also the semantic layer of truisms should not be omitted, as they deal with mass production, consumerism and materialism, as well. Although, similarly to the case of manipulation and ideological hegemony, they often incorporate both poles of the range of attitudes, the important fact is that these issues are mentioned there. In this context, examples such as “a name means a lot just by itself” (applicable to the rise of popularity of brand goods), “eating too much is criminal” (could be read as a reaction to mass production and mass consummation), “It´s good to give extra money to charity” (in contrast with spending unnecessarily much money on luxury and thing people do not need) or “money creates taste” (reacting upon consumer culture driven by money) could be listed as examples. As it was mentioned before, in

Holzer´s case, it is not important what kind of attitude she presents, the important fact is that she brings these attitudes into the dialogue and therefore people can reevaluate them, lead polemics with them and question them. However, the aforementioned points about the emptying of the advertising and media channels and filling them up with a new content bring about the strong association of Holzer´s work with the critique of materialistic tendencies of the 1980s society described in the second chapter of this thesis.

3.2.4 Feminism

Feminism is also one of the basic topics that are present throughout the course

of the whole Holzer´s career. Some of the projects she realized were targeted solely on the presentation of feminist issues. For example, in the project called LUSTMORD

(German word for sexual murder), she deals with the violence on women that is closely connected with sensuality:

Lustmord is composed of 4 LED, text billboard, signs. It also has tables or

bones, certain bones that are connected with sensuality. For example,

fingertips and collar bones. Certain bones have metal bands around them

saying parts of the poem: HER BREASTS for example. The led signs

interchange the perpetrator, the victim and the observer's text. (“Jenny Holzer:

Biography & Art”)

As it was mentioned before, Holzer is very concerned with the medium through which she delivers her messages, and throughout her art life she used even a very radical medium to deliver feminist quotes. As a part of the Laments project, she got her statements tattooed on women´s bodies, which might be interpreted as an attempt to point out that for women their misuse and exploitation is really a personal issue that gets under their skin.

However, in the context of the 1980s she did not go this far. In Truisms, feminism is present only on the level of their content. Nonetheless, it should be pointed out that unlike other aforementioned topics, feminist quotes do not seem to be balanced with their oppositions - all the quotes concerning womanhood, femininity and female rights seem to be considerably straightforward and clear. To illustrate this, truisms such as, “a man can´t know what it is to be a mother”, “fathers often use too much force”, “men are not monogamous by nature”, “mothers shouldn´t make too many sacrifices”, “murder has its sexual side”, “often you should act like you are sexless”, “raise boys and girls the same way”, “random mating is good for rebuking

sex myths”, “romantic love was invented to manipulate women”, “sex differences are here to stay”, “threatening someone sexually is a horrible act” and “you can understand someone of your sex only” 3could be mentioned as the most representative pieces dealing with feminist questions. Even though there are some examples that could be viewed as opposing (such as “you can understand someone of your sex only” and “often you should act like you are sexless” that raise and at the same time denounce differences between the sexes), the important feature of these truisms is that when distinguish between the sexes, women are treated always in the positive way, whereas men are associated mostly with the negative roles. This could be pointed out on the juxtaposition between the pair of truisms concerning parenthood, “fathers often use too much force” and “mother´s shouldn´t take too much sacrifices.” Father, a male figure, is associated with a dominant role and with force and a female figure, a mother, is associated with sacrifice; therefore she is put into a vulnerable, subordinate position. This could be seen as a reflection of the tendencies promoted in the 1980s by leading political and religious conservatives groups heading towards the standard model of family depicted in the second chapter, in which women are subordinate to dominant male figures.

Parenthood and having children is referred to also in other truisms of this kind.

For example the truism “a man can´t know what it is to be a mother” apparently distinguishes between male and female role in a parenthood and it highlights a unique experience of motherhood that men are not able to share. However, in the context of the 1980s when political battles between the pro-life and pro-choice movements took place, this statement could be also seen as a statement criticizing a male involvement and using their power in the issue they about which they can´t know, to paraphrase

3 Only the truisms concerning male/female differences and inequalities were mentioned. There are 59

Holzer´s truism.

Another important aspect of feminist thinking in Holzer´s work is an abuse and misuse of power on women. The aforementioned project Laments is a proof that she has been concerned with this topic over the years and in Truism, the base of the exploration of this topic can be found. As it was pointed out, male figures are associated with the power and force and female figures with subordination and sacrifice. However, in the truisms “threatening someone sexually is a horrible act” and “murder has its sexual side” also the misuse of this power is addressed. Although there are no explicit roles of male or female side articulated in these pieces, on the basis of the context mentioned above and also on the basis of general associations and stereotypical perception of sexual violence, it is legitimate to assume that sexual violence mentioned there is committed on women. In the first truism, the violence is explicitly condemned and in the second one the sexuality and murders (interpretable as a symbol of violence) are brought together.

The dominance of a male figure over a female figure is exemplified not only on the physical level but also on a much wider, it could be said, ideological, discursive level. In the truism “romantic love was invented to manipulate women”, the manipulation is articulated quite explicitly and moreover, from the way the truism is structured, its deliberate nature is highlighted. The manipulation is presented as an organized concept which is supported and maintained by specific inventions.

Furthermore, it is targeted to an emotionality that is generally considered a weak part of female characteristics.

Also the truisms focused on the differences between the genders should not be omitted in this analysis. As it was already pointed out, there are some contradictory

more truisms that could be interpreted in a feminist context, as most of them is formulated very generally, yet, their interpretation would not have to be legitimate in this context. 60

statements in the truisms. However, the formulation of these statements allows a deeper analysis. It is notable that whereas the truism "sex differences are here to stay" and "you can understand someone of your sex only" are formulated as a matter of fact statements of an obvious information, the pieces such as "raise boys and girls the same way" and "often you should act like you are sexless" that deals with overcoming of these differences are formulated more like advices and have a certain tendentious undertone. Thanks to the differences in the tone, the statements have a more insistent and striking effect and therefore, it could be assumed that the overall message of truisms in the context of male and female differences tends to be more on the side of wiping these differences away. Nevertheless, it is unquestionable that

Holzer brings the topic of inequality and differences between men and women into her work and so she mirrors the social debate lead in the 1980s about the position of women in the society, as it was depicted in the second chapter of this thesis.

Conclusion

The aim of this thesis was to depict, compare and contrast social criticism in the 1980s work of American conceptual artists Barbara Kruger and Jenny Holzer.

The main target of the thesis was to identify the topics of social criticism with which the works of these two artists deal and also to analyze the channels and tools they use to communicate the social criticism to their spectators.

The first chapter of the thesis deals mostly with theoretical concepts of postmodern visual art and conceptual art and their relation and interconnection with social criticism. This chapter focuses on and introduces various theories of postmodern philosophers that are subsequently used in the analysis and applied on the analyzed works.

The second chapter deals mainly with the American society and culture of the 1980s and its problems. The issues that are pointed out in the chapter are mostly general tendencies of social character (feminist problem, raise of consumerism, conservative thinking) and are all connected with the change of values in opposition to the preceding era of the 1960s and the early 1970s.

The third chapter aims at the social critique of the aforementioned problems of the 1980s as it appears in the works of Kruger and Holzer. Each artist is introduced and analyzed respectively and their 1980s works are introduced in a wider context of their artistic life and their personal inclinations, as these proved to be the important features of the analyses.

The analyses show that, basically, both artists address similar problems in their works and the reflected issues are traceable in the general problems of the 1980s society. They include for example fight for women´s rights (especially the right to abortion), the critique of the tendencies to return women into their subordinate

positions of housewives, the turn towards the materialism and consumerism supported by the economic policy and the raise of manipulation-like strategies such as advertisement and the use of mass media to manipulation. Also general postmodern tendencies as the critique of grand narratives and the call for their replacement with individual stories were traced in Holzer´s and Kruger´s work. The two authors address similar problems, the difference between them is mainly in the focus they put on respective issues (Kruger is more interested in the work with feminist issues, whereas

Holzer is targeted more towards a general critique of manipulation).

As for the channels they use to convey their social criticism, there can also be found both similarities and differences. Most importantly, both authors rely on textual expression. In both cases the textual expression derives from generally recognizable forms such as advertising, which as pointed out in the first chapter is an important characteristics of conceptual art and at the same time, it supports Kruger´s and

Holzer´s aim to be understood by the general public to whom the criticism should be conveyed. The same reason could be stated as an explanation for the use and subversion of advertising strategies (in Kruger´s case juxtaposition of words and images, in Holzer´s case replacing of the original content of LED signs, a recognizable medium of advertising, by a different content questioning ideologies).

In addition to this, the use of the aspects of advertisement can be in case of both artist interpreted as a mean of social criticism itself, as advertising was a symptomatic feature of the 1980s consumerism and materialism, and re-appropriation of this form, its ironizing and parodying can be seen as ironizing of the whole cultural attitude it symbolically represents.

Among the differences between Holzer and Kruger for example the range of authority with which they present their criticism could be stated. On the one hand,

there is Barbara Kruger, stating her points straightforwardly and in an authoritarian way. Her messages are always clearly supporting one side of the problem, while criticizing the other one. This authoritarian attitude can be seen for example in her frequent use of personal pronouns you/I/we. On the other hand, there stands Jenny

Holzer, who in her truisms offers multiplicity of viewpoints and the point of her criticism is to open a dialogue between different attitudes and to undermine the hegemony of the universal ideology. It could be said that where Kruger tells its spectator that there should be a polyvocality in a social discourse, Holzer presents and offers the polyvocality (which could be seen as an application of Lyotard´s call for a replacement of metanarratives by the narratives of individuals and narratives presenting also different viewpoint that the dominant one).

When all these points arising from the analyses are taken into account, there arises a conclusion that both Barbara Kruger and Jenny Holzer reflect similar issues of the 1980s society and for this criticism they use similar techniques and principles.

The choice of these principles seems to be influenced not only by the general postmodern tendencies that can be found in their works very often, but also from the need to be understandable to a wider public at whom the criticism is targeted (features of advertising, use of textual layers, use of familiar icons). The use of the channels of advertising is also connected with the issues they criticize. Therefore, the 1980s are reflected in their works not only on the level of content and reflected issues but also on the level of modes of expressions that these two artists use.

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“The” Feminism and Visual Culture Reader. London: Routledge, 203. p. 44-

53. Print.

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List of Visual Works Used in the Thesis

Holzer, Jenny. Protect Me From What I Want. 1986. Electronic, spectacolor billboard.

Times Square, New York.

Kruger, Barbara. Untitled (“Buy Me I´ll Change Your Life”).1984. Collage.

Kruger, Barbara. Untitled (“Don´t Be a Jerk”). 1984. Collage.

Kruger, Barbara. Untitled (“I Shop Therefore I am”). 1987. Collage.

Kruger, Barbara. Untitled (“Money Can Buy You Love”). 1985. Collage.

Kruger, Barbara. Untitled (“Our Leader”). N.d. Collage.

Kruger, Barbara. Untitled (“Our Prizes Are Insane“). 1987. Collage.

Kruger, Barbara. Untitled (“Repeat After Me”). 1985. Collage.

Kruger, Barbara. Untitled (“Super Rich, Ultra Gorgeous, Forever Young“). 1997.

Collage.

Kruger, Barbara. Untitled (“We Don´t Need Another Hero”). 1987. Collage.

Kruger, Barbara. Untitled (“We are All That Heaven Allows Us”). 1984. Collage.

Kruger, Barbara. Untitled (“Your Body Is Battleground”). 1989. Collage.

Kruger, Barbara. Untitled (“Your Comfort Is My Silence”). 1981. Collage.

Kruger, Barbara. Untitled (“Your Gaze Hits the Side of My Face”). 1981. Collage.

English Summary

The main aim of my MA thesis was to compare and contrast the social criticism in the 1980s works of two American conceptual artists; Barbara Kruger and

Jenny Holzer. The thesis is divided into three chapters. The first chapter deals with the social criticism in postmodern and conceptual art in general and it introduces various postmodern theories that are used later in the thesis. The second chapter focuses on the social and cultural context of the 1980s in the United States and it depicts mainly the general atmosphere of the decade. In the fourth chapter, representative works of

Kruger and Holzer are analyzed. In the analyses the points from the previous chapter are incorporated and the analyses connect the theoretical information on social criticism in conceptual art with the concrete information about the social atmosphere of the American 1980s. In the conclusion, I sum up the outcomes of the respective analyses of Kruger´s and Holzer´s works and compare their social criticism on the level of the used strategies as well as on the level of the social problems they focus on.

Czech Summary

Hlavním cílem této magisterské diplomové práce bylo porovnat kritiku společnosti 80. let 20. století v dílech dvou amerických konceptuálních umělkyň,

Barbary Kruger a Jenny Holzer. Práce je rozdělena do tří kapitol. První kapitola se zabývá sociální kritikou k postmoderním a konceptuálním umění ve všeobecnosti a představuje různé postmoderní teorie, které jsou později využívané při analýzách jednotlivých prací. Druhá kapitola se zaměřuje na společenský a kulturní kontext 80. let. 20. století ve Spojených státech amerických a vykresluje zejména společenskou atmosféru této doby. Ve třetí kapitole jsou analyzována vybraná díla Barbary Kruger a Jenny Holzer. V těchto analýzách jsou zohledněny informace a poznatky představené v prvních dvou kapitolách, analýzy tedy propojují teoretické informace o využití společenské kritiky v konceptuálním umění s informacemi o společenském klimatu 80. let 20. století ve Spojených státech. V závěru shrnuji výsledky samostatných analýz prací Barbary Kruger a Jenny Holzer a srovnávám jejich kritiku tehdejší společnosti jak na úrovni strategií, které si umělkyně k vyslovení této kritiky zvolily, tak na úrovni problémů, kterým se ve svých pracích věnovaly.