Barbara Kruger's art is about spreading a message. Most of her pieces propagate feminist ideas while others often convey strong social messages. Her artworks are pretty direct and it is clear that she tries to make the viewers think. Marina Abramovic too is about spreading strong social messages, however, she tries to show the message rather than voicing it out. For this, she uses her own body as a tool for art and the spectators, her paint. The two artists are, in more than one way, very similar. Both these ladies are extremely strong women who strive to bring about a change in society and make individuals think.
What Barbara does is use black and white photographs and uses red and white font for her art. Although many consider her to be the epitome of subway art, the messages she tries to convey are more or less quite obvious. Most people with an above average intelligence wouldn't need a third person telling them what Barbara tells the world. Simplistic art can be very well appreciated and Barbara Kruger's work is simple and yet bold. However, what is disappointing is that most times, she does not even use her own photography. One gets the feeling that apart from research, there is barely any effort involved in her work. One can very well appreciate how clear her messages are and to a common man, it involves little or no explanation. She tells people what and how things should be, which comes off as a little forced. It feels like she is stubborn with her beliefs and ideas and that is what she tries to feed to her audience. Still, the irony in her work has the potential to make most think which was and continues to be important since the last couple of generations tend to think less.
Marina Abramovic, as a performance artist, uses her body as a canvas. She tries to test the limitations of human body and challenges the society to think about their own psychotic, yet more than natural urges. She encourages her audience to react to her performances. In one such performance, the world was shocked to see how her audience, just regular citizens of the world's biggest superpower, could react so violently to her silent art. Unlike Barbara Kruger, she lets the world read and interpret the message she tries to convey instead of directly telling them what is right and what is wrong. She leaves it for the world to see the message on their own. However, her art too involves very little work or effort of her own.
Both ladies expose their intellectual minds to the world. Both have been extremely successful in conveying their ideas to the world. But the question is - exposing your mind (mind, not feelings or emotions), can that really be labelled as art? Work pieces that have very little personal expression and much more expression of moralistic ideas, is that not the work of philosophers and social activists?
Again, both ladies are brilliant and their works, thought provoking but the lack of personal touch in their pieces, their need to be heard and the minimal effort in their work is what prevents many from calling their work 'art'. As social activists and leaders, the two would be more than perfect. However, as artists, many argue that their work is not sufficiently visually or emotionally stimulating to be called art.
