Monday, April 21, 2008

Barbara Kruger images

Barbara Kruger's images, (hand+touch against a heart, next to the headline, 'Your moments of joy have the precision of military strategy and 'Your manias become science' over a picture of a mushroom cloud) communicate the male identity's unfeeling perspective on even the tender moments in life. By merging the oxymoronic image of military precision with any idea of joy, Kruger instantly revels a conflict of interest. The very female emotion of experiencing joy by living in the moment has to be planned out and only enjoyed this much for this long in the male world. 
And over the iconic image of ultimate male genius gone bad, the words manias and science draw the male mind to think. Men have spent so much passion on destroying things by pushing themselves to find meaning in life only to end up designing something that could destroy all life. And these are ideas are still held up as advancement and works of great science.
James Brown once said it, "It's a man's world," at least as far back as our culture's history goes. There's evidence pointing to the fact that there could have been a culture before ours that worshipped femininity in everything from its religion to leadership. But, all we know is men ruling, shaping, experimenting, building and destroying, telling and re-telling. There's no "objective discourses of science and history" that aren't bound-up or bound by masculinity. 

1 comment:

eweaston said...

JB: The Hardest Working Man in Cultural Studies

Good points here on Kruger too.