This essay will evaluate the works of social criticism that had been done by the two artists, Jenny Holzer and Barbara Kruger in terms of images and text by compare and analyse some of their works. These two particular artists were chosen because a wide platform of common features can be found in their art. The two artists, Barbara Kruger and Jenny Holzer are both American conceptual artists that utilises textual element as their major component of work such as to apply massive bold typefaces and short revelatory phrases to convey messages to the public. At times the messages are simple and short while other times the messages are longer statements or borrowed and appropriated excerpts from famous writers. Also, they are both female artists …show more content…
Situated openly, Holzer asks the passersby to engage in the work and not necessarily the art community. Her work force the viewers to consider what was being expressed, the neutrality and anonymity of the style of the content urged the viewer to take their own stance and have a personal response to the content which was frequently political, aggressive or intriguing. In this sense, Holzer’s style of work can also be classified as street art as she makes tense discourse to astound the unsuspecting public viewer. In this series, Holzer used LED light boards and billboards onto buildings, landscapes, rivers and oceans all through Europe and in America as this medium empowers her to work likewise with rhythmical and fleeting parts of the content, so that the composed content gains also some of the prosodic characteristics of speech and therefore it is more natural and more communicative. Also that the use of electronic signs enabled her to apply the rhythmical variations that poster do not. Nonetheless, it ought not to be overlooked that in the context of the 1980s and the ascent of consumerism at the time made LED billboards exceptionally conspicuous and symptomatic for advertising strategies. In this context, examples such as ‘money creates taste’ presented this way were dealing with the consumerism directly. Some of them, in spite of the fact that they were …show more content…
It is an image of a military map of Iraq which was source materials from declassified government archives made available to people in general under the landmark Freedom of Information Act of 1966. At that time, huge numbers of the archives contain topic that is considered too sensitive for the general society to see, and parts of these reports have been redacted, or black out by government censors. Holzer found the records with the assistance of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) which makes formerly classified data accessible on its site. The Redaction Paintings incorporate handprints of American soldiers that were accused of crimes such as detainee abuse and assault, correspondence related to detainee interrogation, and maps from the US military that propose procedures for the intrusion of Iraq. However now, this map has been screen-printed onto a linen canvas by Holzer and is covered in a thin, translucent layer of violet oil paint. The map was first photocopied onto clear film, called a photo-stencil, which was used in the screen-printing process to transfer the image onto the canvas. Also, Holzer added blocks of text describing exactly how the invasion and conquest would proceed and features and creates various labels, arrows and symbols onto the map. The paintings are ‘read’ by the viewer as both image and text. Holzer’s works often discuss controversial topics such as brutality, persecution,