Left: Sherrie Levine, After Walker Evans, 1981; Right: Walker Evans, Alabama Tenant Farmer's Wife, 193613
By bringing this work back into the conscious of the art world, she was advancing the art form that is photography by using it to increase our awareness of already existing imagery. On a basic level, we tend to equate originality with aesthetic newness. Why should a new concept – the concept of appropriation and the utilising of existing imagery – be deemed unoriginal? Sherrie Levine was interested in the idea of “multiple images and mechanical reproduction”. She said of her work “it was never an issue of morality; it was always an issue of utility.”14 This statement is easily applied to the works of other appropriation artists, as well as Levine’s.
Barbara Kruger’s work utilised media imagery in an attempt to interpret consumer society. Her background was in media and advertising, having worked as a graphic designer, and picture editor for Condé Nast. Her work “combines compelling images… with pungently confrontational assertations to expose stereotypes beneath.”15 Her most famous work typically combines black and white photography, overlaid with text in a red and white typeface. Statements within her work such as “We don’t need another hero”, “Who knows that depression lurks when power is near?” and “Fund healthcare not warfare” have naturally led viewers to consider her art as politically themed. Kruger however, finds the political label often attached to her work problematic.
In a 1988 interview she insists, “I work with pictures and words because they have the ability to determine who we are, what we want to be and who we become.”16 Whilst there may or may not be political elements to Kruger’s work, the undeniable underlying theme prominent throughout all of her works is the issue of our consumer society.
By using images available for public consumption in a composition with a thought provoking statement, Kruger is asking us to rethink the images that we consume on a daily basis in terms of perception and how underlying messages function within this imagery. Kruger’s use of “less abstract subjects than Duchamp’s”17 may well increase the accessibility of her work, making it familiar and thus available to a wider audience.