Organized in close collaboration with the artist, Barbara Kruger: Thinking of You, I Mean Me, I Mean You will challenge the conventions of the retrospective. Kruger will recast some of her older works, reassembling them or using them as source material for new pieces. Among these are a series of videos in which she intersperses iconic montages like “I Shop Therefore I am” and “Your Body is a Battleground” with new vinyl images reflecting today’s cultural concerns. The exhibition will be presented throughout the museum’s 18,000-square-foot special exhibition space, in its Michigan Avenue-facing windows, and on the floor of its Griffin Court atrium. Pieces created for the museum’s audio guide and for other non-traditional exhibition spaces like city buses and billboards will extend the show into public spaces across the city
Barbara Kruger: Thinking of You. I Mean Me. I Mean You.
Barbara Kruger
"Thinking of You. I Mean Me. I Mean You." (2019)
© Barbara Kruger, digital image courtesy of the artist
Barbara Kruger
Artist rendering of the Art Institute of Chicago, 2011/2020
© Barbara Kruger, source photo courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago
Barbara Kruger
"The Globe Shrinks," 2010
Four-channel video installation; color, sound; 12 min., 43 sec.
Courtesy the artist and Sprüth Magers
Installation view, Sprüth Magers, Berlin, 2010
© Barbara Kruger, photo by Jens Ziehe, courtesy of Sprüth Magers
Barbara Kruger
Still from the video "Untitled (No Comment)," 2020
Three-channel video installation; color, sound; 9 min., 25 sec.
Courtesy the artist, Sprüth Magers, and David Zwirner, New York
© Barbara Kruger, digital image courtesy of the artist
Barbara Kruger
Still from the video "Untitled (No Comment)," 2020
Three-channel video installation; color, sound; 9 min., 25 sec.
Courtesy the artist, Sprüth Magers, and David Zwirner, New York
© Barbara Kruger, digital image courtesy of the artist
Barbara Kruger
Still from the video "Untitled (No Comment)," 2020
Three-channel video installation; color, sound; 9 min., 25 sec.
Courtesy the artist, Sprüth Magers, and David Zwirner, New York
© Barbara Kruger, digital image courtesy of the artist
Barbara Kruger
Still from the video "Untitled (No Comment)," 2020
Three-channel video installation; color, sound; 9 min., 25 sec.
Courtesy the artist, Sprüth Magers, and David Zwirner, New York
© Barbara Kruger, digital image courtesy of the artist
Barbara Kruger
"Untitled (Truth)," 2013
Digital print on vinyl
70 × 115 in. (178.6 × 292.1 cm)
Collection of Margaret and Daniel S. Loeb
© Barbara Kruger, digital image courtesy of the artist
“The terrific range of project proposals we receive each year speaks to the mobile and porous disciplinary boundaries of contemporary art practice, and to the rich and inventive ways writers approach art today. They are alert to the urgent need to expand the conventions of art history and criticism with ideas from other discourses, such as black studies, transnational and diaspora studies, gender and women’s studies, and LGBT studies. The work of lesser known and overlooked artists and art communities continues to be mined, with writers articulating new ways to counter the striking imbalances of race, class and gender that continue to affect the arts and the culture industry.”