About Barbara Kruger's Untitled (Your Body is a Battleground)
Women’s rights are facing increased legislation in the United States. This is 1 of 8 pivotal artworks about women’s autonomy and sexuality.
Cover photo: Untitled (Your Body is a Battleground), photographic silkscreen on vinyl, by Barbara Kruger (1989). Courtesy of The Broad museum.
Even in this #MeToo era, women’s rights are still under attack. Activists are fighting all over the world, for the LGBT community, Black lives, and women’s control over their own bodies and sexuality. Just recently, 8 states have passed new anti-abortion bills. Here are 8 pivotal artworks about women’s autonomy and sexuality. This is one work of an eight-part series.
WARNING: The following article discusses the topic of abortion.
Untitled (Your Body is a Battleground), photographic silkscreen on vinyl, by Barbara Kruger (1989). Courtesy of The Broad museum.
Untitled (Your Body is a Battleground) — Barbara Kruger (1989)
Barbara Kruger (1945 - Present) is an American contemporary artist. She began her career as a graphic designer, working for a variety of magazines. Kruger’s work investigates American culture through lenses of consumerism, power, and gender.
By the 1980s, Kruger developed a visual language of collage in which she combined text and found image within a minimal color scheme of red, white, and black. In a testament to Kruger, her style would be appropriated in 1994 to create the logo for streetwear brand Supreme.
Untitled (Your gaze hits the side of my face), gelatin silver print, mounted and framed, by Barbara Kruger (1981). © Barbara Kruger. Courtesy of Allure.
Untitled (You Invest in the Divinity of the Masterpiece), gelatin silver print, mounted and framed, by Barbara Kruger (1982). © 2019 Barbara Kruger. Courtesy of MOMA.
Untitled (I Shop therefore I Am), silkscreen on vinyl, by Barbara Kruger (1987). Tim Nighswander © Barbara Kruger. Courtesy of Glenstone and The Modern.
In 1989 there was a new wave of anti-abortion laws aimed at undermining the 1973 Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade that declared unduly restriction to abortion is unconstitutional. Kruger — who identifies as a feminist — originally created Untitled (Your Body is a Battleground) as a flier for a pro-choice rally in Washington D.C. The phrase immediately became a powerful rallying cry.
Barbara Kruger’s original flyer for a pro-choice rally in Washington D.C. (1989). Via Flickr.
As can be seen in the original flyer, a woman’s face is dramatically bisected in black and white. She stares forward at the viewer, resolute. Overlaid is the sentence “Your body is a battleground” set in the font Futura Bold Italic. Kruger’s use of text makes her message strikingly clear, leaving no ambiguity. The use of the word “Your” implicates the viewer, drawing attention to the pressing battle over reproductive rights.
Kruger once explained, “I think I developed language skills to deal with threat. It’s the girl thing to do — you know, instead of pulling out a gun.” Kruger’s work is both art and protest. “Art is the creation of commentary,” she declares.
Now over 70 years old, Barbara Kruger continues to create art, though her past work remains incredibly relevant. Maybe the need for activist voices will one day subside.