{"id":1847873,"date":"2026-03-26T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-03-26T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1847873"},"modified":"2026-03-26T08:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T05:00:00","slug":"barbara-kruger-never-be-shocked-shock-is-a-failure-of-imagination","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1847873","title":{"rendered":"Barbara Kruger: \u2018Never be shocked. Shock is a failure of imagination\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>[analyse_image type=&#8221;featured&#8221; src=&#8221;https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/846\/31-117-846-564\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1440\/2\/1442326.jpg&#8221;]<\/p>\n<article class=\"main-article longread\">\n<div class=\"article-main-content article-wrapper has-media-but-its-an-image\" data-status=\"loaded\" data-primary-article=\"true\" data-url=\"\/art-photography\/article\/69965\/1\/barbara-kruger-dazed-spring-2026-issue-interview-artist-supreme-imagination\" data-article-id=\"69965\">\n<header class=\"article-header has-landscape-image no-media\">\n<div class=\"wrapper dg-max-width\">\n<div class=\"inner\">\n<figure class=\"main-img has-figcaption\" data-img-aspect-ratio-type=\"landscape\" data-img-aspect-ratio=\"1.72\" data-template=\"Longread Article\"><span class=\"has-css-custom-props image-container\" data-aspect-ratio-type=\"landscape\"><span class=\"preserve-aspect-ratio\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"DC291_CB2_BarbaraKruger_Archive_03\" class=\"img\" height=\"783\" src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/1350\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1440\/2\/1442326.jpg\" width=\"1350\"><\/span><\/span><figcaption class=\"img-caption\"><span class=\"inner\"><span class=\"credit\">Courtesy of the artist and <span class=\"nowrap\">Spr\u00fcth Magers<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<aside class=\"meta\">\n<div class=\"inner\"><time datetime=\"2026-03-26T08:00:00+00:00\" class=\"timestamp\" title=\"26 March 2026\"><span class=\"month\">DateInMeta<\/span>\u00a0<br \/>\n<span class=\"day\" data-day=\"26\">26,<\/span>\u00a0<br \/>\n<span class=\"year\">2026<\/span><\/time><\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<div class=\"titles\">\n<div class=\"tags\">\n<div class=\"sections\"><a class=\"category vertical vertical - art-photography\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/art-photography\">Art &amp; Photography<\/a><br \/>\n\/<br \/>\n<a class=\"series\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/the-spring-2026-issue\">The Spring 2026 Issue<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<h1 class=\"title\"><span>Barbara Kruger: \u2018Never be shocked. Shock is a failure <span class=\"nowrap\">of imagination\u2019<\/span><\/span><\/h1>\n<div class=\"standfirst\">\n<h2>Savage and satirical, Kruger\u2019s conceptual art predicted the meme culture of today \u2013 now, she says, it\u2019s the right that\u2019s harnessing the power <span class=\"nowrap\">of polemics<\/span><\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<p><time datetime=\"2026-03-26T08:00:00+00:00\" class=\"timestamp\" title=\"26 March 2026\"><span class=\"month\">March<\/span>\u00a0<br \/>\n<span class=\"day\" data-day=\"26\">26,<\/span>\u00a0<br \/>\n<span class=\"year\">2026<\/span><\/time><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"tags\">\n<div class=\"sections\"><a class=\"category vertical - art-photography\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/art-photography\">Art &amp; Photography<\/a><a class=\"series\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/the-spring-2026-issue\">The Spring 2026 Issue<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><time datetime=\"2026-03-26T08:00:00+00:00\" class=\"timestamp\" title=\"26 March 2026\"><span class=\"month\">March<\/span>\u00a0<br \/>\n<span class=\"day\" data-day=\"26\">26,<\/span>\u00a0<br \/>\n<span class=\"year\">2026<\/span><\/time><\/p>\n<div class=\"providers\">\n<div class=\"contributors\"><span class=\"contributor\" data-contributor-role=\"Text\"><span class=\"contributor-role\">Text<\/span><a class=\"contributor-name\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/user\/DominiqueSisley\">Dominique Sisley<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n<div class=\"article-body-container\">\n<div class=\"article-body wrapper\">\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html-embed\">\n<p><em>This story is taken from the spring 2026 issue of Dazed, which is on sale internationally now. Order a copy of the magazine <a href=\"https:\/\/boutiquegalleria.com\/products\/dazed-1\" data-saferedirecturl=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?q=https:\/\/boutiquegalleria.com\/products\/dazed-1&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1772900104119000&amp;usg=AOvVaw2nXgs6xfLxlaNtXXEmyBaR\">here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Don\u2019t call <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/tag\/barbarakruger\">Barbara Kruger<\/a> a revolutionary. The legendary artist has a strong aversion to any kind of \u201cpolitical\u201d labelling when it comes to her work, which may be surprising to anyone who has seen it. \u201cI\u2019m an artist,\u201d the 81-year-old tells me, bluntly, from her home in the Hollywood Hills. Originally from Newark, New Jersey, Kruger has lived in Los Angeles for 34 years. She has spent much of that time \u2013 particularly the last decade \u2013 touring the world\u2019s most prestigious institutions, from the Serpentine in London to the Guggenheim Bilbao, as they held reverent retrospectives of her career. Despite how omnipresent her work has become on protest placards, billboards, museum walls and even TikTok filters, she bristles at easy definitions. \u201cI don\u2019t make feminist art,\u201d Kruger says. \u201cI don\u2019t make political art. I\u2019m a woman who\u2019s an artist, who\u2019s a feminist. I really resist those categories.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"col-sm-6\">\n<p>Kruger\u2019s influence on visual culture cannot be understated. After beginning her career in magazines (she worked for Cond\u00e9 Nast as a designer, eventually becoming head designer at Mademoiselle), she moved into art in the late 70s. Her style was immediately iconic: black-and-white found photos overlaid with bold Futura or Helvetica <span>text bars, typically with scathing, satirical overtones. Throughout her career, she has skewered consumerism, patriarchy and American power structures, and her knowledge of what makes an image travel \u2013 gleaned, she says, from her years working in editorial \u2013 has turned out to be strikingly prescient. Her signature collisions of text and image can be seen as early precursors to memes, and her visual language is so ubiquitous and impactful that it has been co-opted countless times over (most notoriously by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/tag\/supreme\">Supreme<\/a>, who lifted her red-and-white text aesthetic for their logo without her permission).<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"col-sm-6\">\n<p>But despite her rejection of \u201cpolitical\u201d as a label, it\u2019s clear in conversation how deeply Kruger thinks \u2013 and cares \u2013 about politics. She is sharply critical of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/tag\/donald-trump\">Donald Trump<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/tag\/nigel-farage\">Nigel Farage<\/a>, the market economy, media consolidation, the violence in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/tag\/gaza\">Gaza<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/tag\/ukraine\">Ukraine<\/a>, greedy landlords and Andrew Tate (\u201cpretty soon he\u2019ll be your prime minister\u201d). It is exactly the kind of cutting, clear-eyed analysis you would expect from an artist who has spent five decades exposing how images produce and project power. If anything, she is a ferocious realist, though she would probably reject that label too. Below, she tells us more \u2013 in her own words.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<figure class=\"inline-img expandable dev-view-hide\" data-img=\"2cca0715-56fd-4269-b3a2-b416015b77f0\" data-src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/1327\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1440\/2\/1442325.jpg\" data-img-aspect-ratio-type=\"squarish\" data-img-aspect-ratio=\"0.98\"><span class=\"has-css-custom-props image-container\" data-aspect-ratio-type=\"squarish\"><span class=\"preserve-aspect-ratio\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"DC291_CB2_BarbaraKruger_Archive_02\" class=\"img\" height=\"1350\" src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/1327\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1440\/2\/1442325.jpg\" width=\"1327\"><\/span><\/span><figcaption class=\"img-caption\"><span class=\"caption\">Untitled (I shop therefore I am), 1987\/2019 (stills overview). Single-channel video on LED panel, <span class=\"nowrap\">sound, 57sec<\/span><\/span><span class=\"credit\">Courtesy of the artist, David Zwirner and <span class=\"nowrap\">Spr\u00fcth Magers<\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p>\u201cThe collisions of image and text \u2013 that\u2019s what I learned at magazines. I never thought anyone would know my name or my work. How prominence arises, who is seen, who is not, who is heard \u2013 it\u2019s a heady mix of historical circumstance, social relations, arbitrariness, and accident. I feel fortunate my work has resonated.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCo-option of my work doesn\u2019t frustrate me. I find it amusing sometimes. You can\u2019t control it. I don\u2019t sue people. I don\u2019t own a typeface. I don\u2019t feel proprietary. It\u2019s unbelievable to me that my work has the recognition it has, and only in the past ten years have I really had institutional support.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI have so many friends who are brilliant artists who don\u2019t have visibility, so I can hardly complain. I don\u2019t have assistants. I\u2019ve never had assistants. I don\u2019t have a constituted studio. I\u2019m sitting in a room that\u2019s like an office in a house. I\u2019m the first person in my family to ever own property. I\u2019m not living month to month. Everything\u2019s good \u2013 better than I dreamed. And I have a career, at least for the next 20 minutes. But the market is fickle.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI taught for many years at UCLA, and I always told my students: make the best work you can. Get any job you can. The idea that artists could live off their work was unthinkable when I was young. We always had jobs.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<blockquote>\n<p>\u201cJust make the best work that you can. Don\u2019t believe your own hype. When I see people hustling vapour and buying their own hype, I ain\u2019t charmed by it\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p>\u201cYoung artists should also be aware of market forces. When you\u2019re elevated really quickly, the market and people\u2019s tastes are fickle. People follow the buzz, but the buzz doesn\u2019t last long. Try not to personalise your success or your failures. No work of art is as brilliant and major, or as minor and pathetic, as it\u2019s written to be. You should really suspect overblown praise or pathologically inflicted harm, and stay distant from both. Just make the best work that you can. Don\u2019t believe your own hype. When I see people hustling vapour and buying their own hype, I ain\u2019t charmed by it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s a very unsettling time in the US. Every day here is scary. Judges have fear. Politicians have fear. Teachers have fear. Universities have fear.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m not a nostalgic person, so it\u2019s not like I think things were better at another time, but the notion of law, of justice or rules? That\u2019s over now in America. Regardless of how difficult the birthing of this nation was, and how damaged it was, it was still an extraordinary place. But that\u2019s all changing now.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI have never voted with my conscience. When I hear people say they vote with their conscience, especially young people, I want to say: the world is bigger than your narcissistic conscience. I\u2019ve always thought and voted strategically. How does power operate? I don\u2019t think about the word \u2018politics\u2019. I think about power and how it\u2019s threaded through cultures.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI dispute the notion of utopian futures and the idea of a romantic struggle. I\u2019m very ensconced within the everyday. The grand gesture, the great movement \u2013 they will be ongoing, but I have a very sober eye. These romantic ideas of revolution, especially on the middle and the left \u2013 I just want to say, \u2018Hey, guess what? There is a \u2018rev\u2019, and it\u2019s coming from the right, folks!\u2019<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<figure class=\"inline-img expandable dev-view-hide\" data-img=\"dbc06f79-729d-4eee-b8e5-b416015b7b11\" data-src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/1022\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1440\/2\/1442328.jpg\" data-img-aspect-ratio-type=\"portrait\" data-img-aspect-ratio=\"0.76\"><span class=\"has-css-custom-props image-container\" data-aspect-ratio-type=\"portrait\"><span class=\"preserve-aspect-ratio\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"July 2006 cover of Dazed &amp; Confused\" class=\"img\" height=\"1350\" src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/1022\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1440\/2\/1442328.jpg\" width=\"1022\"><\/span><\/span><figcaption class=\"img-caption\"><span class=\"caption\">July 2006 cover of Dazed <span class=\"nowrap\">&amp; Confused<\/span><\/span><span class=\"credit\">Courtesy of <span class=\"nowrap\">the artist<\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p>\u201cTrump is a brilliant salesman. He can be affable and charming when he wants something, and he knows how to message.\u00a0Every time the left and the middle would say, \u2018Oh, he\u2019s such a fool, a moron.\u2019 I want to say, \u2018You\u2019re the fool and the moron!\u2019 He ain\u2019t no moron. He ain\u2019t no fool. He is a brutal punisher who knows how to ingratiate himself.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe right just speaks their desires, speaks their goal, and is unashamed about their drive toward dominance. I\u2019m not saying the Democrats should do that, but they have to be able to get their message across, and not to say something in 36 sentences that they can say in four. That\u2019s not to collapse meaning, but to reach people.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPolemic isn\u2019t a stodgy skill. It can work across class, across race, and the internet accelerates its power. That\u2019s what we\u2019re seeing now.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m neither an optimist nor a pessimist. I try to rely on my reality testing, on what is actually going on around me and in the world. It\u2019s one of the reasons I\u2019ve said for years that I\u2019m never shocked at anything. Whenever I hear people say they\u2019re shocked, especially in America, I feel it\u2019s a misreading of what the possibilities of the misuse of power are. Never be shocked. Being shocked is a failure of imagination.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<figure class=\"inline-img expandable dev-view-hide\" data-img=\"48470b82-abd1-4e05-9da4-b416015b76f5\" data-src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/2000\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1440\/2\/1442324.jpg\" data-img-aspect-ratio-type=\"landscape\" data-img-aspect-ratio=\"2.43\"><span class=\"has-css-custom-props image-container\" data-aspect-ratio-type=\"landscape\"><span class=\"preserve-aspect-ratio\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"DC291_CB2_BarbaraKruger_Archive_01\" class=\"img\" height=\"842\" src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/1600\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1440\/2\/1442324.jpg\" width=\"2048\"><\/span><\/span><figcaption class=\"img-caption\"><span class=\"caption\">Untitled (Your body is a battleground), 1989\/2019 (stills overview). Single-channel video on LED panel, sound, <span class=\"nowrap\">1min 4sec<\/span><\/span><span class=\"credit\">Courtesy of the artist and <span class=\"nowrap\">Spr\u00fcth Magers<\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<div class=\"article-series header article-series tags\"><span class=\"heading\">More on these topics:<\/span><a class=\"series\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/art-photography\">Art &amp; Photography<\/a><a class=\"series\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/the-spring-2026-issue\">The Spring 2026 Issue<\/a><a class=\"series\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/tag\/barbarakruger\">Barbara Kruger<\/a><a class=\"series\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/tag\/political\">political<\/a><a class=\"series\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/tag\/donald-trump\">Donald Trump<\/a><a class=\"series\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/tag\/supreme\">Supreme<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"image-navigation\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/news\/\" class=\"image-navigation__img one\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"image-navigation__wrapper\">\n<h3 class=\"image-navigation__title\">News<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/fashion\/\" class=\"image-navigation__img two\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"image-navigation__wrapper\">\n<h3 class=\"image-navigation__title\">Fashion<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/music\/\" class=\"image-navigation__img three\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"image-navigation__wrapper\">\n<h3 class=\"image-navigation__title\">Music<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/film-tv\/\" class=\"image-navigation__img four\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"image-navigation__wrapper\">\n<h3 class=\"image-navigation__title\">Film &amp; TV<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/art-photography\/article\/69965\/1\/barbara-kruger-dazed-spring-2026-issue-interview-artist-supreme-imagination#features\" class=\"image-navigation__img five\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"image-navigation__wrapper\">\n<h3 class=\"image-navigation__title\">Features<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/beauty\/\" class=\"image-navigation__img six\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"image-navigation__wrapper\">\n<h3 class=\"image-navigation__title\">Beauty<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/life-culture\/\" class=\"image-navigation__img seven\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"image-navigation__wrapper\">\n<h3 class=\"image-navigation__title\">Life &amp; Culture<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/art-photography\/\" class=\"image-navigation__img eight\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"image-navigation__wrapper\">\n<h3 class=\"image-navigation__title\">Art &amp; Photography<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/a><\/div>\n<\/article>\n<div class=\"article-body wrapper\">\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html-embed\">\n<p><em>This story is taken from the spring 2026 issue of Dazed, which is on sale internationally now. Order a copy of the magazine <a href=\"https:\/\/boutiquegalleria.com\/products\/dazed-1\" data-saferedirecturl=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?q=https:\/\/boutiquegalleria.com\/products\/dazed-1&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1772900104119000&amp;usg=AOvVaw2nXgs6xfLxlaNtXXEmyBaR\">here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Don\u2019t call <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/tag\/barbarakruger\">Barbara Kruger<\/a> a revolutionary. The legendary artist has a strong aversion to any kind of \u201cpolitical\u201d labelling when it comes to her work, which may be surprising to anyone who has seen it. \u201cI\u2019m an artist,\u201d the 81-year-old tells me, bluntly, from her home in the Hollywood Hills. Originally from Newark, New Jersey, Kruger has lived in Los Angeles for 34 years. She has spent much of that time \u2013 particularly the last decade \u2013 touring the world\u2019s most prestigious institutions, from the Serpentine in London to the Guggenheim Bilbao, as they held reverent retrospectives of her career. Despite how omnipresent her work has become on protest placards, billboards, museum walls and even TikTok filters, she bristles at easy definitions. \u201cI don\u2019t make feminist art,\u201d Kruger says. \u201cI don\u2019t make political art. I\u2019m a woman who\u2019s an artist, who\u2019s a feminist. I really resist those categories.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"col-sm-6\">\n<p>Kruger\u2019s influence on visual culture cannot be understated. After beginning her career in magazines (she worked for Cond\u00e9 Nast as a designer, eventually becoming head designer at Mademoiselle), she moved into art in the late 70s. Her style was immediately iconic: black-and-white found photos overlaid with bold Futura or Helvetica <span>text bars, typically with scathing, satirical overtones. Throughout her career, she has skewered consumerism, patriarchy and American power structures, and her knowledge of what makes an image travel \u2013 gleaned, she says, from her years working in editorial \u2013 has turned out to be strikingly prescient. Her signature collisions of text and image can be seen as early precursors to memes, and her visual language is so ubiquitous and impactful that it has been co-opted countless times over (most notoriously by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/tag\/supreme\">Supreme<\/a>, who lifted her red-and-white text aesthetic for their logo without her permission).<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"col-sm-6\">\n<p>But despite her rejection of \u201cpolitical\u201d as a label, it\u2019s clear in conversation how deeply Kruger thinks \u2013 and cares \u2013 about politics. She is sharply critical of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/tag\/donald-trump\">Donald Trump<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/tag\/nigel-farage\">Nigel Farage<\/a>, the market economy, media consolidation, the violence in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/tag\/gaza\">Gaza<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/tag\/ukraine\">Ukraine<\/a>, greedy landlords and Andrew Tate (\u201cpretty soon he\u2019ll be your prime minister\u201d). It is exactly the kind of cutting, clear-eyed analysis you would expect from an artist who has spent five decades exposing how images produce and project power. If anything, she is a ferocious realist, though she would probably reject that label too. Below, she tells us more \u2013 in her own words.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<figure class=\"inline-img expandable dev-view-hide\" data-img=\"2cca0715-56fd-4269-b3a2-b416015b77f0\" data-src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/1327\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1440\/2\/1442325.jpg\" data-img-aspect-ratio-type=\"squarish\" data-img-aspect-ratio=\"0.98\"><span class=\"has-css-custom-props image-container\" data-aspect-ratio-type=\"squarish\"><span class=\"preserve-aspect-ratio\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"DC291_CB2_BarbaraKruger_Archive_02\" class=\"img\" height=\"1350\" src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/1327\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1440\/2\/1442325.jpg\" width=\"1327\"><\/span><\/span><figcaption class=\"img-caption\"><span class=\"caption\">Untitled (I shop therefore I am), 1987\/2019 (stills overview). Single-channel video on LED panel, <span class=\"nowrap\">sound, 57sec<\/span><\/span><span class=\"credit\">Courtesy of the artist, David Zwirner and <span class=\"nowrap\">Spr\u00fcth Magers<\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p>\u201cThe collisions of image and text \u2013 that\u2019s what I learned at magazines. I never thought anyone would know my name or my work. How prominence arises, who is seen, who is not, who is heard \u2013 it\u2019s a heady mix of historical circumstance, social relations, arbitrariness, and accident. I feel fortunate my work has resonated.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCo-option of my work doesn\u2019t frustrate me. I find it amusing sometimes. You can\u2019t control it. I don\u2019t sue people. I don\u2019t own a typeface. I don\u2019t feel proprietary. It\u2019s unbelievable to me that my work has the recognition it has, and only in the past ten years have I really had institutional support.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI have so many friends who are brilliant artists who don\u2019t have visibility, so I can hardly complain. I don\u2019t have assistants. I\u2019ve never had assistants. I don\u2019t have a constituted studio. I\u2019m sitting in a room that\u2019s like an office in a house. I\u2019m the first person in my family to ever own property. I\u2019m not living month to month. Everything\u2019s good \u2013 better than I dreamed. And I have a career, at least for the next 20 minutes. But the market is fickle.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI taught for many years at UCLA, and I always told my students: make the best work you can. Get any job you can. The idea that artists could live off their work was unthinkable when I was young. We always had jobs.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<blockquote>\n<p>\u201cJust make the best work that you can. Don\u2019t believe your own hype. When I see people hustling vapour and buying their own hype, I ain\u2019t charmed by it\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p>\u201cYoung artists should also be aware of market forces. When you\u2019re elevated really quickly, the market and people\u2019s tastes are fickle. People follow the buzz, but the buzz doesn\u2019t last long. Try not to personalise your success or your failures. No work of art is as brilliant and major, or as minor and pathetic, as it\u2019s written to be. You should really suspect overblown praise or pathologically inflicted harm, and stay distant from both. Just make the best work that you can. Don\u2019t believe your own hype. When I see people hustling vapour and buying their own hype, I ain\u2019t charmed by it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s a very unsettling time in the US. Every day here is scary. Judges have fear. Politicians have fear. Teachers have fear. Universities have fear.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m not a nostalgic person, so it\u2019s not like I think things were better at another time, but the notion of law, of justice or rules? That\u2019s over now in America. Regardless of how difficult the birthing of this nation was, and how damaged it was, it was still an extraordinary place. But that\u2019s all changing now.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI have never voted with my conscience. When I hear people say they vote with their conscience, especially young people, I want to say: the world is bigger than your narcissistic conscience. I\u2019ve always thought and voted strategically. How does power operate? I don\u2019t think about the word \u2018politics\u2019. I think about power and how it\u2019s threaded through cultures.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI dispute the notion of utopian futures and the idea of a romantic struggle. I\u2019m very ensconced within the everyday. The grand gesture, the great movement \u2013 they will be ongoing, but I have a very sober eye. These romantic ideas of revolution, especially on the middle and the left \u2013 I just want to say, \u2018Hey, guess what? There is a \u2018rev\u2019, and it\u2019s coming from the right, folks!\u2019<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<figure class=\"inline-img expandable dev-view-hide\" data-img=\"dbc06f79-729d-4eee-b8e5-b416015b7b11\" data-src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/1022\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1440\/2\/1442328.jpg\" data-img-aspect-ratio-type=\"portrait\" data-img-aspect-ratio=\"0.76\"><span class=\"has-css-custom-props image-container\" data-aspect-ratio-type=\"portrait\"><span class=\"preserve-aspect-ratio\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"July 2006 cover of Dazed &amp; Confused\" class=\"img\" height=\"1350\" src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/1022\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1440\/2\/1442328.jpg\" width=\"1022\"><\/span><\/span><figcaption class=\"img-caption\"><span class=\"caption\">July 2006 cover of Dazed <span class=\"nowrap\">&amp; Confused<\/span><\/span><span class=\"credit\">Courtesy of <span class=\"nowrap\">the artist<\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p>\u201cTrump is a brilliant salesman. He can be affable and charming when he wants something, and he knows how to message.\u00a0Every time the left and the middle would say, \u2018Oh, he\u2019s such a fool, a moron.\u2019 I want to say, \u2018You\u2019re the fool and the moron!\u2019 He ain\u2019t no moron. He ain\u2019t no fool. He is a brutal punisher who knows how to ingratiate himself.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe right just speaks their desires, speaks their goal, and is unashamed about their drive toward dominance. I\u2019m not saying the Democrats should do that, but they have to be able to get their message across, and not to say something in 36 sentences that they can say in four. That\u2019s not to collapse meaning, but to reach people.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPolemic isn\u2019t a stodgy skill. It can work across class, across race, and the internet accelerates its power. That\u2019s what we\u2019re seeing now.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m neither an optimist nor a pessimist. I try to rely on my reality testing, on what is actually going on around me and in the world. It\u2019s one of the reasons I\u2019ve said for years that I\u2019m never shocked at anything. Whenever I hear people say they\u2019re shocked, especially in America, I feel it\u2019s a misreading of what the possibilities of the misuse of power are. Never be shocked. Being shocked is a failure of imagination.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<figure class=\"inline-img expandable dev-view-hide\" data-img=\"48470b82-abd1-4e05-9da4-b416015b76f5\" data-src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/2000\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1440\/2\/1442324.jpg\" data-img-aspect-ratio-type=\"landscape\" data-img-aspect-ratio=\"2.43\"><span class=\"has-css-custom-props image-container\" data-aspect-ratio-type=\"landscape\"><span class=\"preserve-aspect-ratio\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"DC291_CB2_BarbaraKruger_Archive_01\" class=\"img\" height=\"842\" src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/1600\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1440\/2\/1442324.jpg\" width=\"2048\"><\/span><\/span><figcaption class=\"img-caption\"><span class=\"caption\">Untitled (Your body is a battleground), 1989\/2019 (stills overview). Single-channel video on LED panel, sound, <span class=\"nowrap\">1min 4sec<\/span><\/span><span class=\"credit\">Courtesy of the artist and <span class=\"nowrap\">Spr\u00fcth Magers<\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<div class=\"article-series header article-series tags\"><span class=\"heading\">More on these topics:<\/span><a class=\"series\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/art-photography\">Art &amp; Photography<\/a><a class=\"series\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/the-spring-2026-issue\">The Spring 2026 Issue<\/a><a class=\"series\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/tag\/barbarakruger\">Barbara Kruger<\/a><a class=\"series\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/tag\/political\">political<\/a><a class=\"series\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/tag\/donald-trump\">Donald Trump<\/a><a class=\"series\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/tag\/supreme\">Supreme<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>[analyse_source url=&#8221;https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/art-photography\/article\/69965\/1\/barbara-kruger-dazed-spring-2026-issue-interview-artist-supreme-imagination&#8221;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[analyse_image type=&#8221;featured&#8221; src=&#8221;https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/846\/31-117-846-564\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1440\/2\/1442326.jpg&#8221;] Courtesy of the artist and Spr\u00fcth Magers DateInMeta\u00a0 26,\u00a0 2026 Art &amp; Photography \/ The Spring 2026 Issue Barbara Kruger: \u2018Never be shocked. Shock is a failure of imagination\u2019 Savage and satirical, Kruger\u2019s conceptual art predicted the meme culture of today \u2013 now, she says, it\u2019s the right that\u2019s harnessing the power [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[226,76],"class_list":["post-1847873","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-crawlmanager","tag-dazeddigital-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1847873","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1847873"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1847873\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1847873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1847873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1847873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}