BARBARA KRUGER THINKING OF Y̶O̶U̶. I MEAN M̶E̶. I MEAN YOU.

Serpentine is honoured to present a solo exhibition of recent works by American artist Barbara Kruger (b. 1945, Newark, New Jersey, USA). The exhibition will be presented at Serpentine South from ] The exhibit opened February 1st at the Serpentine South and will close March 17th 2024. On March the 4th the exhibition will open and close on April 22 2024 with the viewing hours being from 6- 9 ppm in the public realm with Outernet Arts.

This is Babara’s first solo institutional exhibition in London in 23 years, presented both at Serpentine South and in the public realm.

The site-specific exhibition will feature Kruger's iconic pieces reconfigured in recent years as video works, including Untitled (I shop therefore I am] (1987/2019] and Untitled {Your body is a battleground] (1989/2019.

Titled Thinking of ¥Ou. I Mean Me. I Mean You. the exhibition will feature a unique selection of installations, moving image works, and multiple soundscapes installed across the Serpentine building, bookshop, and outside banners, electric taxis as well as on large-scale, immersive wraparound screens at Outernet Arts. Lastly, the artist has been trying with Tik Tok for the first time to create an effect.

It will be the artist's first solo institutional show in London in over 20 years and a return to Serpentine. Kruger previously exhibited at Serpentine in 1994 as part of the group exhibition Wall to Wall.

Devoted to the exploration of visual culture and image production, Kruger is known for her work with imagery and words, frequently borrowing from the languages of advertising, graphic design, and magazines. Her practice often explores complex mechanisms of power, gender, class, and capital.

Barbara Kruger said: "It would be great if my work became archaic, if the issues that they try to present, the commentary that I'm trying to suggest was no longer pertinent. Unfortunately, that is not the case at this point."

Bettina Korek, CEO of Serpentine said: "Serpentine is thrilled to present Barbara Kruger's first institutional exhibition in London in more than twenty years. This show will extend beyond gallery walls to engage Kensington Gardens and other sites around London, building on a history of public art collaborations I am proud to have facilitated with Kruger in Los Angeles - from wrapping school buses with her signature larger than life graphic texts in 2012 to staging massive billboards and murals in 2020 for the second edition of Frieze Los Angeles."

Hans Ulrich, Artistic Director of Serpentine said: "Barbara Kruger is one of the most transformative artists of our time. For her exhibition Thinking of ¥mi. I Mean Me. I Mean You., at Serpentine, the artist connects to the South Gallery's architecture visually and sonically, and draws the viewer into the space, reflecting on context, histories, cultures, and hierarchies.

The future is invented with fragments from the past, and in her recent work, which is seen here for the first time outside the US, Kruger reanimates some of her previous works through puzzles, aerosols, and other distortions. Summarising her practice, Kruger told me in a recent interview that her art 'is about how we are to one another'. For more than half a century, she has created a commentary on living in our times." For this exhibition, the artist has adapted works, which were recently presented at museums in the United States, to specific locations within Serpentine, both indoors and outdoors.

Untitled (I shop therefore I am), 1987/2019 plays on the philosopher and scientist Rene Descartes' (1596-1650) famous words 'I think, therefore I am'. The video begins with the original image being shattered into multiple pieces of puzzles, which are then assembled to 'rebuild' the work. Once complete, the phrase in the centre changes from the original 'I shop therefore I am' to other variations of it: 'I shop therefore I hoard' / 'I need therefore I shop' / 'I love therefore I need' / 'I am therefore I hate' / 'I sext therefore I am' / 'I die therefore I was.'

Four more replays are in this exhibition, including Untitled (Our Leader), 1987/2020. In these works, the original image transforms and dissolves, then comes back to offer further variations of the written message it carries.

The original work referenced in Untitled (Your body is a battleground), 1989/2019, is a rare example of a work that Kruger made in relation to a specific event, as the artist often emphasises that her 'work is not issue-specific. [...] It's more of an ongoing commentary'. In this instance however, it was created as a poster for the Women's March on Washington in 1989, organised in support of reproductive freedom. Kruger uses the visual language of division - the woman's face is split in two halves with contrasting colours, which also can be read as a frontline. In the following years since the work was created, it was translated to many languages and used across the globe at protests.

In a recent conversation with Hans Ulrich Obrist, Kruger emphasised the ongoing relevance of this work, she said: 'I think it's a very free-floating statement about bodies also. It can allude to men, women, non-binary people - it is important for us to realise that the only binaries that count now are digital binaries. I believe in the possibility of the multiplicity of bodies, and those bodies are all vulnerable.'

The site-specific work wrapping all the walls of the first gallery, Untitled (That's the way we do it), 2011/2020, manifests Kruger's embracement of recent digital and commercial appropriations of her work that have all been posted online. It is a further variation of the work Untitled (I shop therefore I am) displayed on the LED screen in the gallery, as it uses the same image of a hand holding a placard, but in this instance the hand presents the different images and objects made across the years by other people in Kruger's 'style'. A single image from this work is also installed in the Koenig bookshop at Serpentine South, playing further with the context of consumerism.

The exhibition is also a UK premiere of Untitled (No Comment), 2020, an immersive three channel video installation, in which short snippets of footage found on social media platforms are accompanied by the artist's work directly addressing viewers with questions, statements, and quotes by French philosopher and writer Voltaire and American rapper Kendrick Lamar. Footage of hairstyle tutorials, animated cats, acrobats, blurred out selfies,

Barbara Kruger: Thinking of You. I Mean Me. I Mean You.,(Installation view, 1 February – 17 March 2024, Serpentine South) Photo: George Darrell

installation images of Kruger's work, and gemstones mix to stress our era's short attention spans.

Pledge, Will, Vow, 1988/2020, is a three-channel video work, recently presented at the 59th Venice Biennale in 2022. In this work, Kruger takes on the texts of the U.S. Pledge of Allegiance, traditional marriage vows, and the last will and testament.

In Untitled (Forever), 2017, enveloping the walls and floor of a gallery rarely open to visitors, Kruger assembles her words with those of others. A quote from George Orwell's novel 1984 is installed on the floor. The rest of the area is covered with textual works, one of which finishes with the words THIS IS ABOUT -¥G-th- I MEAN ME. I MEAN YOU..

The exhibition will also feature an audio chorus of greetings, emotions, and sentiments that address visitors at the entry and throughout the building.

The project is curated by the artist in close collaboration with Natalia Grabowska, Curator at Large, Architecture and Site-specific Projects, and produced by Brittany Stewart, Creative Producer, and Mike Gaughan, Gallery Manager.

About Barbara Kruger:

Barbara Kruger (born 1945, Newark, NJ, USA) is an artist who works with pictures and words. She lives and works in Los Angeles and New York. After spending two years at Syracuse University and Parsons School of Design in New York, she began working as a designer and picture editor at the Conde Nast magazines Mademoiselle and House &Garden. Frequently borrowing from the language of advertising and graphic design, her practice often explores the complex mechanisms of power, gender, class, and capital. Her work has been shown in international art institutions and across public spaces, including installed and projected onto buildings, billboards, hoardings, cars, buses, and skate parks, and printed in newspapers. She is an Emeritus Distinguished Professor in the Department of Art at UCLA.

Solo shows include the Museum of Modern Art, New York (2022), Los Angeles County Museum of Art (2022), Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin (2022), The Art Institute of Chicago (2021), AMOREPACIFIC Museum of Art, Seoul (2019), National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC (2016), High Line Art, New York (2016), Modern Art Oxford (2014), Kunsthaus Bregenz (2013), Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich (2011), Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt (2010), Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow (2005), Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2000), Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (1999), Musee d'art contemporain, Montreal (1985), and Kunsthalle Basel (1984). Group shows include those at Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston (2021), Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin (2018), V-A-C Foundation, Palazzo delle Zattere, Venice (2017), Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2014), Biennale of Sydney (2014), Museum Ludwig, Cologne (2013), Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (2010), Museum of Modern Art, New York (2010, 2009, 2007), Palazzo Grassi, Venice (2006), Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (2004), Tate Liverpool (2002), Serpentine, London (1994), Centre Pompidou, Paris (1988), and Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York

(1987). Her work was included in The Milk of Dreams, the 59th International Art Exhibition

- La Biennale di Venezia (2022).

Thinking of ¥mt. I Mean Me. I Mean You. is an adaptation of the exhibition organised by the Art Institute of Chicago, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and The Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Thinking of¥eit. I Mean Me. I Mean You. was on view at the Art Institute of Chicago from 19 September 2021 to 24 January 2022, and was co-organised by James Rondeau, President and Eloise W. Martin Director, and Robyn Farrell, Senior Curator at the Kitchen and former Associate Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art. At LACMA, the exhibition was presented 20 March 2022 to 17 July, 2022 and was organised by Michael Govan, CEO and Wallis Annenberg Director, and Rebecca Morse, Curator, Wallis Annenberg Photography Department. The installation at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, was on view from 18 July, 2022 to 2 January 2023 and was organised by Peter Eleey, former Chief Curator, MoMA PS1, and Lanka Tattersall, Laurenz Foundation Curator, Department of Drawings and Prints.

Beyond the gallery walls

Thinking of ¥ou. I Mean M̶e̶. I Mean You. will extend beyond Serpentine South. From 4th March to 20th May 2024, from 6 pm to 11.30 pm in its second collaboration with Outernet Arts - located at the junction of Tottenham Court Road and Charing Cross Road alongside Centre Point - a presentation of Barbara Kruger's work will be displayed on the world's largest wrap-around public screens.

In Silent Writings, 2009/2024, Barbara Kruger explores how we communicate and connect with global events and with each other. The piece weaves images and words in an attempt to engage issues of control, power and dominance. Kruger incorporates her own words alongside quotes from writers and philosophers including Aime Cesaire, Goethe, Thomas Mann and Mary Therese McCarthy. These quotes allude to themes of violence, political modes of operation and spectatorship. Kruger manipulates selected words, enlarging or removing them to highlight their meanings and create new ones. Opposing terms like contact/isolation, order/horror, stupid/clever become fluid and interchangeable.

Throughout the piece, cropped found documentary photographs of conflicts, politicians and mass media images briefly appear between sentences, serving as illustrations of the words or evidence of their relevance. As in many of her works, the artist addresses the viewers directly to make us question our beliefs, perspectives and how we perceive the world.

About Serpentine

Building new connections between artists and society, Serpentine presents pioneering contemporary art exhibitions and cultural events with a legacy that stretches back over half a century, from a wide range of emerging practitioners to the most internationally recognised artists, writers, scientists, thinkers, and cultural thought leaders of our time.

Based in London's Kensington Gardens, across two sites, Serpentine North and Serpentine South, Serpentine features a year-round, free programme of exhibitions, architectural showcases, education, live events and technological activations, in the park and beyond the gallery walls.

The Serpentine Pavilion is a yearly pioneering commission, which began in 2000 with Dame Zaha Hadid. It features the first UK structures by some of the biggest names in international architecture.

Public art has emerged as a central strand of Serpentine's programme. Major presentations include a collection of Eduardo Paolozzi's sculptures (1987), Anish Kapoor's Turning the World Upside Down (2010), Lee Ufan presentedRelatum-Stage (2018-19), Christo and Jeanne-Claude's London Mastaba in the Serpentine Lake (2018), I LOVE YOU EARTH by Yoko Ono (2021), Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster In remembrance of the coming alien (Alienor), (2022), and Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg's Pollinator Pathmaker (2022 - ongoing).

Proud to maintain free access for all visitors, thanks to its unique location, Serpentine also reaches an exceptionally broad audience and maintains a profound connection with its local community.

A Serpentine limited edition by Barbara Kruger will be launched to coincide with the exhibition, to purchase please contact here. Barbara Kruger's limited run drop of apparel will also be sold exclusively at Serpentine South throughout the exhibition.

About Outernet Arts

Outernet Arts is an independent arts organisation located in the heart of London, offering free and accessible exhibitions in one of the world's largest digital spaces. With screens spanning the height of four stories, the organisation presents a year-round programme every Monday from 18:00 to 23:30. It aims to bring together a diverse network of both established and under-represented artists, commissioning projects that explore the complexities of the media space. Through artist-led initiatives, Outernet Arts sparks meaningful discussions about our existence in a digitally dominated world.

For more information about this exhibition and others, please visit Serpentine’s website. Please also visit and follow Serpentine on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube, along with TikTok.

BARBARA KRUGER THINKING OF Y̶O̶U̶. I MEAN M̶E̶. I MEAN YOU.

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