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Bus, a Public Art Fund Project was the work of artist Barbara Kruger (photo: Marian Harders, courtesy Public Art Fund) |
| With Bus, the artist overstepped the lines of appropriation by David E. Brown It must have seemed a good idea. As the bus pulled away, heading up Sixth Avenue, its back end almost shouted, in bold, black type: "Don't look at me. Don't laugh at me. Don't get too close. Don't bother me." And a bigger slogan, white on a field of red: "Don't be a jerk." Some kind of advertisement? One of those new, irony-laden spots, like Sauza's "Life Is Harsh" tequila pitch? Or maybe a public service announcement, like the New York City Transit Authority's recent "be polite" campaign? A little of both. Bus, a Public Art Fund project that ran between midtown Manhattan and Queens last November, was the work of artist Barbara Kruger, who wrapped a city bus bumper to bumper with her trademark exhortations and a dozen or so lessons on freedom, politics, celebrity, and power from Mary McCarthy, Thomas Mann, Courtney Love, H.L. Mencken, and others. Kruger gained fame in the 1980s with her innovative appropriation of some basic advertising techniques--big image, straightforward text, bold layout--in the service of art-cum-activism, exploring politics, gender, consumerism, and other issues. Though her early work was on paper, her art has always tried to be public, first on the Spectacolor Board in Times Square and later on billboards around town, posters across the country, and, finally, a big, shiny bus. So why did Bus seem so wrong? Part of the reason must be the lack of novelty; the imperatives of the 1980s are just that. We haven't necessarily gotten smarter, but one can only be spoken down to--even through a thick veneer of ironic distance--so many times. With Bus, though, the artist's work stepped over the thin line of appropriation: It actually became advertising. Sporting her signature typographic style and numerous aphorisms, this was a Barbara Kruger billboard, not a civics lesson. (She had two concurrent gallery shows, though it's hard to tell which project came first.) Like well-made propaganda, bus wraps--rolling billboards for everything from soft drinks to Broadway musicals--are difficult to criticize. "The greatest threat to freedom is the absence of criticism," read one Bus quote, from Nigerian writer and activist Wole Soyinka. As the 40-foot-long behemoth lumbered by, it was hard not to feel threatened. |
Keywords:
bus, advertising, art, public art
