Barbara Kruger

1. What it is — photograph, 55 × 41 in (Art21), portrait orientation; authored work, Mary Boone. A found photograph of a classical bust of a woman's head in profile, „whose neck disappears into a block of stone“ (Smarthistory), + seven words. First phase of the series: text BLACK on white labels, red only as a border.
2. Composition — the bust takes up x 20–95%, looking RIGHT, the nose at x ≈ 78%; text in a narrow left column x 10–24%, seven labels of one word each, evenly spaced y 10–90% — Smarthistory: „in a vertical column, like a ransom note, to the left of the bust“. Four labels (Your / hits / side / face) have a black L-bracket in the top left corner, three (gaze / the / of my) don't — a 1-0-1-0-1-0-1 rhythm that pulls the eye down the column. The eye enters at „Your“ top left, reads down the column, then the profile deflects it right — the viewer is physically on the side the bust does NOT look toward: the sentence is exactly right descriptively („your gaze hits the side of my face“).
3. Colour — black and white, halftone grain visible; red only in the border (2% of the format). No red label — proof that the label was first a TYPESETTING device (black on white, as if cut out from a newspaper), and red came later as a brand.
4. Typography — class: geometric grotesque, bold italic, lowercase with a tall Y; each word on its own white label, label the width of the word (not of the column) — which is why the right edge of the column „jumps“. Specific typeface not confirmed for this work (Fonts In Use has none); Futura Bold Oblique documented for the body of work (Kemper, Eye 109), not for this sheet.
5. Message — Smarthistory: a direct response to Mulvey 1975; „you“ is the assumed male viewer. Three seconds: face + „Your gaze“. Five metres: bust, column; words not — the labels are small. This work demands half a metre, unlike 05 and 07.
6. Why exactly this way — profile facing RIGHT + text on the LEFT: so that a viewer reading from the left stands exactly „to the side“. If the bust had looked left, into the text, the sentence would be a lie.
7. What would kill it — a single label with the whole sentence at the bottom. The word-by-word column is what creates the tempo (seven beats) and the „ransom note“ feel.

Principles: etiketa-preko-slike zamjenica-bez-antecedenta dizajner-pise-naslov jeftina-tehnika-kao-jezik To verify against the image: technique (Art21 only says „photograph“; 1981–82 sheets of the same series are gelatin silver — Art21 for Your comfort); whether the border is painted or photographed with the work; Smarthistory was not accessible in the browser (Cloudflare) — text from WebFetch.

1. What it is — gelatin silver print, mounted and framed, 182.2 × 115.8 cm (MoMA, anonymous fund). Found reproduction of a detail from Michelangelo's The Creation of Adam (two fingers, cracks in the vault) + a sentence in five black bars.
2. Composition — FIVE black bars across the full width: y 2–8% ("You invest in the"), y 24–28% (empty), y 42–58% ("divinity" — enormous, one word across the whole format), y 76–80% (empty), y 92–98% ("of the masterpiece"). The image is cut as if through a roller blind: the fingers touch at y ≈ 33%, x 45–60%, exactly in the strip of image between the first empty bar and "divinity". Eye: top left → fingers → "divinity" (which stops everything) → down. MoMA: "juxtaposing the creation of man with bold text".
3. Colour — black and white; red only the frame. MoMA: contrast of "strident text" against "Michelangelo's soft luminosity" — the fresco's soft tone against the hard black bars.
4. Typography — white geometric grotesque, bold italic, on black; three sizes: "divinity" ≈ 14% of format height, the top and bottom phrases ≈ 3%. One word carries the image, the rest of the sentence is small — dva-rastojanja-citanja.
5. Message — MoMA: "You" pulls the viewer into "perpetuating the patriarchal narratives of religion and art history"; art as "a secularised religion that is bought and sold". Five metres: fingers + DIVINITY. Half a metre: "you invest" — investing money and investing faith at once.
6. Why exactly this way — the most famous image in Western art, which may not be altered; so the operation is EXTERNAL: bars across, nothing inside the image. The source's authority remains legible and works against the source — detournement-zvanicne-slike.
7. What would kill it — removing the two empty bars. Without them the image is "an illustration with a caption"; with them the image is TRAPPED, the fingers touch through bars.

Principles: detournement-zvanicne-slike traka-kroz-cijeli-format zamjenica-bez-antecedenta dva-rastojanja-citanja To verify against the image: whether the frame is red (the MoMA hero image shows a red edge — yes) and whether it is part of the work or added by the museum.

1. What it is — one of nine sheets in the portfolio; offset lithograph and screenprint with lithography and blind embossing, 52.1 × 52.1 cm; Peter Blum Edition, printed by Derriere L'Etoile Studios, NY; edition 50 + 10 AP; this print 37/50 (MoMA). The portfolio's title inverts the proverb "children should be seen and not heard".
2. Composition — square. Two crossed forearms with clenched fists occupy x 5–95%, y 10–65% — an X across the format; the eye enters on the fists (y ≈ 55%) and only then finds the word "n o t" BELOW them, y ≈ 60%, x 30–60%, small, yellow, letter-spaced. Above and below the forearms a flat yellow plane (not background — it outlines the arms like a silhouette). The gesture (refusal) is the message, the word only confirms it.
3. Colour — the only work in this selection without red: black-and-white halftone + a YELLOW plane (~#F2C21B) which is also the letter colour. Colour works as hierarchy: yellow = what isn't photograph (plane and word are the same layer). The portfolio has other colours per sheet — the whole portfolio has not been seen.
4. Typography — geometric grotesque, italic, lowercase, ~2% of format height, letter-spacing ≈ 4 em — three letters scattered under the fists. No label: letters sit directly on the image. razmak-usporava-citanje — the format's only word is its quietest element.
5. Message — MoMA on the portfolio: first person plural, "we", a call to question the media message. Five metres: the X of arms = "no". Half a metre: "not" — the word repeats the gesture, adds nothing to it; passes the cover test (Fukuda's criterion).
6. Why exactly this way — a nine-sheet portfolio needs the format recognised as a series without a red label; so here the operation is reversed: the word REDUCED, colour changed, gesture enlarged. Proof that the system isn't "a red-and-white label" but a RELATIONSHIP between large image and small word.
7. What would kill it — "NOT" in capitals on a red label. It would become a poster; as it is, it's a whisper below a blow.

Principles: razmak-usporava-citanje jedna-slika-jedna-rijec boja-kao-hijerarhija-ne-ukras To verify against the image: which of the three techniques (litho / screen / blind embossing) carries the yellow; the other eight sheets (MoMA 59845–59854) have not been seen — the portfolio's title is probably on one of them.

1. What it is — photographic screenprint on vinyl, 111 × 113 in (Art21, Mary Boone) — almost square; 1987. The Broad holds a 1987–2019 version: single-channel video on LED panel with sound, 350.2 × 350.2 cm. It also exists as a bag, T-shirt, key — an entire line of merch — the work is its own distribution. The PGDA record says "November 28th, 2019" and "Poster" — incorrect (that is the date of a version/release), the work's year is 1987.
2. Composition — found photograph of an open hand, thumb up left, holding a white card; card x 25–80%, y 22–65%, rotated ≈ −3° (being held, not lying flat); fingers extend above and below the card. Eye: card (brightest field) → text → hand. The card is a physical object within the image (the hand holds it), not a label OVER the image — the only one of the eight where the label sits inside the photograph's own space.
3. Colour — black-and-white halftone; card white; text RED on white (inverse of the standard white-on-red); frame red. Red = text + frame, nothing else.
4. Typography — geometric grotesque, bold italic; three lines: "I shop" ≈ 12% of format height, "therefore" ≈ 4%, "I am" ≈ 12% — the connective shrunk, subject and predicate large; the sentence reads as two slogans with a footnote between them.
5. Message — Descartes inverted: "cogito ergo sum" → I shop, therefore I am; slogan-u-novom-kontekstu — source recognisable, context (card in hand = credit card) shifts meaning. Five metres: hand + I SHOP. Half a metre: "therefore" — a philosophical connective in an ad. "I" without an antecedent: who's speaking, the hand or you?
6. Why exactly this way — the card in the hand is Kruger's only label with a REASON to be inside the image: a credit card. Hence red on white — the card is plastic, not a sign.
7. What would kill it — white text on a red label over the hand. It would revert to the standard and lose the object; the hand would be holding nothing.

Principles: slogan-u-novom-kontekstu etiketa-preko-slike zamjenica-bez-antecedenta jedna-slika-jedna-rijec artefakt-nosi-distribuciju To verify against the image: the PGDA image (publicdelivery) is probably a bag/print, not the 1987 vinyl — same proportions; the 1987 original has not been seen in a museum.

1. What it is — screenprint on vinyl, 276.5 × 531.3 × 6.4 cm (Whitney, Emily Fisher Landau). The same work on billboards across New York, Public Art Fund, 1 November 1988–31 January 1989 (eight photographs in the archive); installation Las Vegas 1987 (Art21). Found reproduction of an advertising illustration: a girl in profile touching the flexed bicep of a boy.
2. Composition — landscape format ≈ 1:1.92. A red bar across the FULL width y 55–72% (17% of height), on the lower third; girl x 5–50%, boy x 45–95%; boy's fist top right (x ≈ 85%, y ≈ 15%), girl's finger on the bicep y ≈ 80% — the bar passes BETWEEN the fist and the finger, cutting the scene exactly between the gesture (flexing) and the reaction (touch). The boy looks at the viewer; the girl at him. Eye: boy's face → bar (sentence) → finger. Whitney audio: enlargement makes the halftone dots visible.
3. Colour — black and white + one red (bar, frame). The illustration was probably in colour originally — reducing it to black and white is the operation (Walters: "crude, newsprint images").
4. Typography — geometric grotesque, bold italic, white, ONE line, ≈ 9% of format height, running the whole width of the bar with small margins — legible from the street on a billboard.
5. Message — title of a Tina Turner song, 1985 (Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome), used as a slogan; Whitney: a question about stereotypes of who gets to be a hero. "We" without an antecedent: the viewer is drawn into a plural that refuses. Five metres: two children + sentence; passes the test as a billboard — the work IS a billboard.
6. Why exactly this way — the 1950s advertising illustration already speaks the language of advertising (muscle = masculinity, admiration = femininity); the bar doesn't illustrate but REFUTES the image in the same tone of voice. The image must not be cropped closer — both the finger and the fist need to be visible.
7. What would kill it — the bar moved to the top. It would then be a headline (image illustrating text); as it is, the bar is a VERDICT that comes after the image.

Principles: slogan-u-novom-kontekstu traka-kroz-cijeli-format zamjenica-bez-antecedenta zrno-i-zamucenje-kao-oblik artefakt-nosi-distribuciju To verify against the image: source of the illustration (Whitney: "image printed in a magazine or book" — artist unknown, Rockwell-type, do NOT claim Rockwell); whether the image is a drawing or a photograph (in the screenshot it looks painted).

1. What it is — photograph and screen[print] in a coloured wooden artist's frame, 130.3 × 173.5 × 4.6 cm (SFMOMA, Fisher Collection). Found photograph, 19th century: bearded man in a coat, hand raised, standing over a naked body laid on a table covered with cloth; on the wall a shelf with bottles — an anatomical/medical scene.
2. Composition — landscape format 3:4 (inverted: 1.33 width). Man x 5–30%, body diagonal x 15–90%, y 55–80%; the words "N o R a d i o" at y 42–48%, x 30–75%, in the space BETWEEN the raised hand and the body — in the spot where a headline would sit in an advertisement. Eye path: the man's face → hand → word → body. Frame red and thick (≈ 3%).
3. Colour — black and white + red: letters and frame. The letters are red DIRECTLY on the photograph, without a label — the only one like this in the selection; the frame is coloured wood (documented), part of the work.
4. Typography — geometric grotesque (sans serif), bold italic, spacing ≈ 3 em, ≈ 5% of height — two words stretched across 45% of the width. razmak-usporava-citanje: the inscription reads letter by letter, like a sign in a shop window.
5. Message — "No Radio" is the sign New York drivers left in their car window in the 1980s so a thief wouldn't smash the glass (Washington Post 1989 "No radio, nothing in trunk") — this context is not in the SFMOMA record, it's taken from a newspaper source about the phrase itself, not about the work; the connection to the body on the table (nothing to take) is a READING, not documented fact. Five metres: scene + red dots; half a metre: the words.
6. Why exactly this way — the spacing. If "No Radio" were set normally on a label, it would be a slogan; spaced out and small it becomes an INSCRIPTION ON AN OBJECT — like on a car.
7. What would kill it — a white label on red across the middle. The body would disappear under the band, and the work lives on the whole body being visible.

Principles: razmak-usporava-citanje jedna-slika-jedna-rijec boja-kao-hijerarhija-ne-ukras To verify against the image: the identity of the source photograph (medical? theatrical?); whether the man's raised hand is holding an object; SFMOMA has no text — fields 5–6 are a reading.

1. What it is — photographic screenprint on vinyl, 284.48 × 284.48 cm (Broad; Art21 112 × 112 in). Made as a POSTER for the Women's March on Washington, April 1989, against the wave of laws that were dismantling Roe v. Wade (Broad); Eye 5: "I got frustrated and did it myself. I went out with my students… putting up the posters". Found studio portrait of a woman (1950s), frontal.
2. Composition — square. Face divided EXACTLY at x = 50%: left positive, right negative (Broad: "split in positive and negative exposures"). Three labels: "Your body" y 12–22%, x 22–78%; "is a" y 44–52%, x 40–60% — sitting at the root of the nose, right on the dividing line, between the eyes; "battleground" y 78–88%, x 15–85%, across the mouth and chin. Eye path: eyes (y ≈ 32%, one dark, one white) → "is a" → down to "battleground" → back up to "Your body". Broad: the face "without a body, divided and obscured by text, signals a sharp division".
3. Colour — black and white + red label. The negative on the right is half the image "in colour" without colour: halftone dots on the right half light, skin black — one operation (jedna-operacija-po-radu: invert half) creates all the contrast; red only carries the words. crno-bijelo-prije-boje literally: the composition stands in positive and negative, colour is added as text.
4. Typography — geometric grotesque (sans serif), bold italic, white, three lines, widths of the labels = width of the word (hence three different widths, centred) — "is a" is narrow so as not to cover the eyes. Letter height ≈ 7% of the format — legible from 20 m.
5. Message — Broad: "simultaneously art and protest"; "you" here is a WOMAN (unlike in 01, where it's a man) — the same pronoun, a different audience, the same indeterminacy. Five metres: face + battleground. Half a metre: "is a" between the eyes. Walters (Eye 109): today it works as a "statement of fact" for all sides.
6. Why exactly this way — a street poster: square (can be pasted anywhere), one face (recognisable from across the street), split down the middle (an argument without words — the body is already divided). The words only name what the image is already doing.
7. What would kill it — moving the dividing line off x = 50% or replacing it with a soft gradient. The division has to be a CUT, not a fade — it's a battle line.

Principles: jedna-operacija-po-radu etiketa-preko-slike zamjenica-bez-antecedenta crno-bijelo-prije-boje artefakt-nosi-distribuciju jedna-slika-jedna-rijec To verify against the image: whether the 1989 street poster also had text about the march (date, call to action) below — the Art21 NYC 1989 installation has not been viewed; the source of the portrait.

1. What it is — offset lithograph, 27.3 × 22.9 cm, Hearst Corporation (publisher and printer), mass edition (MoMA SC731.1995). Cover of Esquire, Howard Stern. Roberts (MoMA 2004): visual strategies "appropriated from the mass media were returned to their sources on covers she made for Newsweek and Esquire".
2. Composition — portrait of Stern centred, hair filling the upper two thirds; three labels in a step that WIDENS downward: "I" y 15–22% / x 47–58%; "hate" y 36–47% / x 33–67% (across the nose and mouth — the eyes remain open above); "myself" y 55–68% / x 20–80%; below, small, "and you love me for it" y 72–75%, x 40–65%. Top left, house cover lines in red labels ("Shocking but True! HOWARD STERN BLITZES AMERICA By Barbara Kruger") — and these too in HER format: the whole cover became her work. The Esquire masthead (the house script) remains.
3. Colour — black and white portrait + red labels; the same red for the masthead — the magazine and the artist share the colour, so it's not visible where one stops and the other starts.
4. Typography — geometric grotesque (sans serif), bold italic; "myself" ≈ 13% of height, "I" ≈ 7%, the small line ≈ 2% — three sizes: dva-rastojanja-citanja (from the news-stand: I HATE MYSELF; from the hand: "and you love me for it" — the second message is a MOCKERY of the first, as with Jamie Reid).
5. Message — is "I" Stern? her? the reader? A label across the mouth: speaking in his place. Five metres: face + hate. Half a metre: the sentence that blames the buyer ("you love me for it") — the magazine's buyer is the ADDRESSEE.
6. Why exactly this way — the magazine is her home turf; this is proof the system works even when turned back on its source — and that at that point it becomes indistinguishable from advertising. The small line is the only difference between her cover and an ordinary one.
7. What would kill it — removing the small line. What would remain is "I hate myself" as a shock headline — a tabloid without the twist.

Principles: dva-rastojanja-citanja etiketa-preko-slike zamjenica-bez-antecedenta fiksan-sistem-kao-brend artefakt-nosi-distribuciju To verify against the image: whether "By Barbara Kruger" is the byline of a piece in the issue (i.e. whether she also wrote the article) — MoMA does not say; the portrait photographer.