Barbara Kruger wins Best Thought-Provoker in Wallpaper* Design Awards 2024

Untitled (Admit nothing/Blame everyone/ Be bitter), 1987/2020

(Image credit: Artworks by Barbara Kruger, courtesy the artist and Sprüth Magers)

Barbara Kruger returns to London next month with her first solo institutional show in 20 years, with ‘Thinking of ~~You~~. I Mean Me. I Mean You’ making for a glorious mish-mash of visual culture at the Serpentine in London. Kruger draws on her distinctive style in newer and reworked pieces, eschewing cultural hierarchies in an intertwining of literary quotes, constitutional texts and social media selfies.

Expect to see work debuting for the first time in London, with the three-channel video installation Untitled (No Comment), featuring social media snippets, from quotes by Voltaire to animated cats and hair tutorials.

It will join a site-specific work which wraps its way around the walls of the first gallery, slyly referencing the works made by others in Kruger’s style over the years, as well as rethought pieces which distort both imagery and the written word, such as in Untitled (I shop therefore I am) and Untitled (Our Leader). Says Kruger: ‘It would be great if my work became archaic, if the issues that they try to present, the commentary that I’m trying to suggest was no longer pertinent. Unfortunately, that is not the case at this point.’

Thinking of You. I Mean Me. I Mean You’ is At Serpentine South 1 February – 17 March 2024

serpentinegalleries.org

A version of this article appears in the February 2024 issue of Wallpaper* – dedicated to the Wallpaper* Design Awards 2024 – available in print, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today

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Hannah Silver is the Art, Culture, Watches & Jewellery Editor of Wallpaper*. Since joining in 2019, she has overseen offbeat art trends and conducted in-depth profiles, as well as writing and commissioning extensively across the worlds of culture and luxury. She enjoys travelling, visiting artists' studios and viewing exhibitions around the world, and has interviewed artists and designers including Maggi Hambling, William Kentridge, Jonathan Anderson, Chantal Joffe, Lubaina Himid, Tilda Swinton and Mickalene Thomas.