Barbara Kruger: Desire Exists Where Pleasure is Absent

Since the 1980s, Barbara Kruger has been widely considered one of the most important artists of her generation. A brilliant conceptualist who works with abrasive, large-format text and image collages, often installed to create overwhelming, all-encompassing propagandistic environments, she appropriates advertising imagery and other symbols of conspicuous consumption to question stereotypes and ask questions about identity and the cultural representation of power. This volume documents a 2006 graphic installation as well as the video installation, Twelve , both installed at kestnergesellschaft in Hannover. Kruger was awarded the Golden Lion Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2005 Venice Biennale. She is represented in New York by Mary Boone.