Studio Brief 02 - Collaborative Practice Brief | Fur for Animals Brief | Barbara Kruger Research

During our feedback with some of our tutors, they advised us to research an artist called Barbara Kruger. As she does similar poster designs as the 'Fur for Animals' campaign, this is useful as we could get a more of a better understanding why the 'Fur for Animals' uses this similar style to prevent the audience from owning or buying real fur. 

Barbara Kruger
Barbara Kruger, is an American conceptual artist and collagist, born January 26, 1945. Much of her work consists of black and white photographs overlaid with declarative captions in white on red Futura Bold Oblique or Helvetica Ultra Condensed. The phrases in her works often include pronouns such as "you", "your", "I", "we", and "they", addressing cultural constructions of power, identity, and sexuality.

Her Work 
Much of Kruger's work pairs found photographs with pithy and assertive text that challenges the viewer. She develops her ideas on a computer, later transferring the results (often billboard-sized) images. Examples of her instantly recognizable slogans read “I shop therefore I am,” and “Your body is a battleground," appearing in her trademark white letters against a red background. Much of her text calls attention to ideas such as feminism, consumerism, and individual autonomy and desire, frequently appropriating images from mainstream magazines and using her bold phrases to frame them in a new context.

Kruger has said that "I work with pictures and words because they have the ability to determine who we are and who we aren’t."

 

From looking from Kruger's poster designs, I can fully understand why these colours have been chosen (red, black and white). In colour psychology: red symbolise danger, savage and cynical emotions, black and white are colours that are reversible so what action the certain person makes, there is no going back or unchanging it. Similar to what the 'Fur for animals' do to deliver their message to their audience. By taking an innocent animals fur away from them is unchangeable act as the fur cannot be put back.