ANOTHER Artwork at La Jolla's UCSD

Price Center East. 'Another' on the left wall.

Barbara Kruger is everything that might be thought of when the subject of “crossover” artists is brought up.  Besides being a world-class photographer, she has been a critic, curator, writer and designer.  She was also a teacher at UCSD in La Jolla before joining the faculty at UCLA.

Krugers’s best-known work is the overlying of captions onto photographs.  Many of these works are very quirky and deal with feminist ideas.  One of her works she is well known for is “I SHOP THEREFORE I AM” which is a take on Descartes’ “I think therefore I am.”  

On the large interior wall of Price Center East, Kruger’s ‘Another’ dominated. A massive double image of clocks which contains the following phrases: ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER NIGHT, ANOTHER IDEA, ANOTHER DREAM, ANOTHER SONG, ANOTHER FEAR, ANOTHER JOB, ANOTHER EXAM, ANOTHER SMILE, ANOTHER BOOK, ANOTHER SWEATER, ANOTHER CAR, ANOTHER LOVE, ANOTHER LIFE. The words, which sporadically cover the clocks, suggest the moments that can happen at any time of the day or night. There are also two LED displays that show news stories to further suggest how our lives are culturally infected, constructed, and contained.

The clocks on the wall are extended to the floor by the use of terrazzo rectangles placed throughout the area. These colored blocks contain quotes from well-respected figures in the worlds of both the arts and sciences. The expansiveness of the wall and floor anchor the area with powerful images and, with the texts, create a space of visual pleasure, comfort, and relevancy.

Barbara Kruger is an internationally respected artist. She had an exhibition at the LA Museum of Contemporary Art in 2000, the Museum of Contemporary Art in La Jolla in 2005, received the Leone d'Oro for lifetime achievement at the 2005 Venice Biennale, and has done installations around the world.  She taught at UCSD for five years before joining the faculty at UCLA.

For more information on contemporary art in La Jolla, visit ThumbprintGallery on Kline Street. The gallery is open Wednesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays, and Sundays from 12-4pm.

Source: http://stuartcollection.ucsd.edu/artists/kruger.shtml