Barbara Kruger’s Untitled (Money Talks), 2011, is emblematic of the artist’s work from 2011–2012 in which she pared back her compositions to focus exclusively on text rendered at large scale. These works crucially emerged in the aftermath of the worldwide economic recession, a context substantially different from the frothy mid-1980s that formed the backdrop for her early works with text. First exhibited at L&M Arts in Los Angeles in 2011, the present example was shown amongst other works at immersive scale with phrases like “MONEY MAKES MONEY” and “TALK IS CHEAP.” Another work from this exhibition, The Globe Shrinks, 2010, was acquired by The Hammer Museum.
Kruger’s fine art practice grew out of her career as a graphic designer at Condé Nast Publications, where she learned the effects that different combinations of images and typefaces could have on a reader. Her time in commercial graphic design was “the biggest influence on my work,” she recalled, as her waged work “became, with a few adjustments, my ‘work’ as an artist.” Kruger’s work with text also evolves from her association with the Pictures Generation, a loosely aligned group of artists that included Jenny Holzer and Cindy Sherman, amongst others, whose work directly engaged the role of television, film, advertising and news media on the popular American consciousness. Kruger’s caustic commentary speaks to the roles of power, value and commodification in contemporary society.
“My work has always been about power and control and bodies and money.”
—Barbara KrugerCapitalized white text starkly contrasts with the solid black background. At seven feet wide, the present example confronts viewers with the bold text: MONEY TALKS. Isolated, these words unfold with new resonances beyond the traditional definition of the idiom, obliquely referencing gossip and ostentation. At the same time, the phrase is a platitude—the same text is the title for both a 1997 comedy film starring a fictional con man and a weekly podcast from The Economist about global financial markets. Kruger has variously been called the “poet laureate of the age of spectacle,” isolating phrases with profound social and political implications. Rendered in strong, sans serif type and at monumental scale, the words also read like an ambiguous directive: is Kruger lamenting political corruption, demanding payment, or acerbically observing the ways of the world?
