Past Exhibition

In the Tower: Barbara Kruger

A grainy black and white photograph showing a close-up of a woman’s profile is overlaid with three horizontal red bands with white text at the top, center, and bottom edges of this horizontal composition. The woman seems to lie down and look up at a metal instrument, perhaps a piece of medical equipment, with a long, eye-dropper-like tube extending close to her face. Her cheeks and profile appear between the central and bottom bands of text. Lit from our left, she has dark eyebrows and eyelashes, a straight nose, and her lips are closed. She seems to have pale skin and her hair is covered by a fold of fabric, perhaps a hat. The eye we see is open and the metal instrument points to the bridge of her nose, seeming to close in on her right eye. Light colored fabric behind her could be the uniform of a person standing opposite us. The red bands have white lettering saying, “Know nothing” across the top; “Believe anything” across the center; and “Forget everything” across the bottom.
Barbara Kruger, Untitled (Know nothing, Believe anything, Forget everything), 1987/2014, digital print on vinyl, Gift of the Collectors Committee, Sharon and John D. Rockefeller IV, Howard and Roberta Ahmanson, Denise and Andrew Saul, Lenore S. and Bernard A. Greenberg Fund, Agnes Gund, and Michelle Smith, 2014.38.1

Details

  • Dates

    -

  • Locations

    East Building, Pod 3 Tower
A grainy black and white photograph showing a close-up of a woman’s profile is overlaid with three horizontal red bands with white text at the top, center, and bottom edges of this horizontal composition. The woman seems to lie down and look up at a metal instrument, perhaps a piece of medical equipment, with a long, eye-dropper-like tube extending close to her face. Her cheeks and profile appear between the central and bottom bands of text. Lit from our left, she has dark eyebrows and eyelashes, a straight nose, and her lips are closed. She seems to have pale skin and her hair is covered by a fold of fabric, perhaps a hat. The eye we see is open and the metal instrument points to the bridge of her nose, seeming to close in on her right eye. Light colored fabric behind her could be the uniform of a person standing opposite us. The red bands have white lettering saying, “Know nothing” across the top; “Believe anything” across the center; and “Forget everything” across the bottom.
Barbara Kruger, Untitled (Know nothing, Believe anything, Forget everything), 1987/2014, digital print on vinyl, Gift of the Collectors Committee, Sharon and John D. Rockefeller IV, Howard and Roberta Ahmanson, Denise and Andrew Saul, Lenore S. and Bernard A. Greenberg Fund, Agnes Gund, and Michelle Smith, 2014.38.1

A focused exhibition featuring the work of American artist Barbara Kruger (b. 1945) reopens the East Building Tower Gallery after nearly three years of renovation to the space. Inspired by the Gallery's recent acquisition of Kruger's Untitled (Know nothing, Believe anything, Forget everything) (1987/2014), the exhibition comprises related images of faces and figures in profile over which Kruger has superimposed her striking phrases and figures of speech. The distinctive direct address of Kruger's texts (using active verbs and personal pronouns) confronts viewers straight on, contrasting with her selected images of side-glancing figures, receiving and averting the audience’s gaze. The results are arresting conceptual works of visual power and wit.

Organization: Organized by the National Gallery of Art, Washington.

Sponsors: The exhibition is made possible by The Tower Project of the National Gallery of Art.

Attendance: 60,330

Brochure: In the Tower: Barbara Kruger by Molly Donovan. Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 2016. 

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