Serpentine and Outernet Arts continue an innovative partnership presenting the digital artwork Silent Writings (2009/2024) by American artist Barbara Kruger, which explores how we communicate and connect with global events and with each other.
The piece weaves images and words to engage issues of control, power and dominance. Kruger incorporates her own words alongside quotes from writers and philosophers including Aimé Césaire, Goethe, Thomas Mann and Mary Therese McCarthy. These quotes touch on themes of violence, political modes of operation and spectatorship. Kruger manipulates selected words, enlarging or removing them to highlight their meanings and to create new ones. Opposing terms like contact/isolation, order/horror, stupid/clever become fluid and interchangeable.
Throughout the piece, cropped found documentary photographs of conflicts, politicians and mass media images briefly appear between sentences, serving as illustrations of the words or evidence of their relevance. As in many of her works, the artist addresses viewers directly to make us question our beliefs, perspectives and how we perceive the world.
SERPENTINE SOUTH
Thinking of You. I Mean Me. I Mean You.
On view until 17 March 2024
Silent Writings connects with the artist’s latest exhibition Thinking of You. I Mean Me. I Mean You., currently on display at Serpentine South, and is Kruger’s first solo institutional show in London in over twenty years. The exhibition continues until the 17th March 2024.
