This artwork is created by Barbara Kruger, an American conceptual artist. A comprehensive summary of her background is formulated on her personal website, where one can find all her paintings. She majored in design at Parsonâs School of Design in New York and after that, she applied as a designer to Mademoiselle magazine (âBiographyâ, n.d.). Then, throughout her life, she worked in several art departments as a chief designer. Such background influenced her artworks because they were inspired by the contemporary shifts in the design industry. The painting “Untitled (Your Body Is a Battleground)” uses a recognizable author’s font on a red background, as well as a memorable woman’s face, divided in half into a black-and-white and radiographic picture (Kruger, 1989). It seems that Kruger wants to underscore the two sides of womenâs nature: her beautiful purposeful face and the negative effect manifested in a desire to objectify women.
What is interesting here is the context under the painting. This artwork was printed on fliers and distributed during the 1989 march for womenâs equality and womenâs lives. The main aim of this march, in which 300 000 people participated, was to defend the federal right to abortion (Caldwell, 2016). The phrase âyour body is a battlegroundâ refers to the desires of conservative judges to undermine Roe v. Wade in 1989. Nevertheless, Krugerâs artwork has global meaning because it refers to women’s numerous problems in extremely conservative countries. For example, the Islamic Revolution of 1979 in Iran, which occurred two years before the women’s march in the US, meant an increased control of men over Iranian womenâs rights. Thus, the painting refers also to Iranian women in their struggle for gender freedom.
References
Biography. (n.d.). Barbara Kruger. Web.
Caldwell, E. C. (2016, July 16). The history of âYour body is a battlegroundâ. Jstor Daily. Web.
Kruger, B. (1989). Untitled (your body is a battleground). 284.48 x 284.48 cm. The Broad. Web.
Appendix A
