Barbara Kruger: Silent Writings

25 Mar 2024 6-9pm

Overview

FREE. Offsite screening at Outernet, The Now Building, Charing Cross Rd, London, WC2H 8LH.

Serpentine and Outernet Arts continue an innovative partnership presenting a digital artwork Silent Writings by American artist Barbara Kruger that explores how we communicate and connect with each other.

In Silent Writings, 2009/2024, Barbara Kruger explores how we communicate and connect with global events and with each other. The piece weaves images and words in an attempt to engage issues of control, power and dominance. Kruger incorporates her own words alongside quotes from writers and philosophers including Aimé Césaire, Goethe, Thomas Mann and Mary Therese McCarthy. These quotes touch on themes of violence, political modes of operation and spectatorship. Kruger manipulates selected words, enlarging or removing them to highlight their meanings and create new ones. Opposing terms like contact/isolation, order/horror, stupid/clever become fluid and interchangeable.

Throughout the piece, cropped found documentary photographs of conflicts, politicians and mass media images briefly appear between sentences, serving as illustrations of the words or evidence of their relevance. As in many of her works, the artist addresses the viewers directly to make us question our beliefs, perspectives and how we perceive the world.