Barbara Kruger

One thing I learned working at magazines was that if you couldn't get people to look at a page or a cover, then you were fired. It was all about how you create arresting works, and by arresting I mean stop people, even for a nano-second. ”

I just say I'm an artist who works with pictures and words. ”

I believe that who we are, and consequently the work that we make, whether we're visual artists or writers or journalists or filmmakers, is a projection of where we were born, what's been withheld or lavished upon us, our color, our sex, our class. And everything we do in life to some degree is a reflection of that context. ”

I think that art is still a site for resistance and for the telling of various stories, for validating certain subjectivities we normally overlook. I'm trying to be affective, to suggest changes, and to resist what I feel are the tyrannies of social life on a certain level. ”

I try to deal with the complexities of power and social life, but as far as the visual presentation goes I purposely avoid a high degree of difficulty. ”

Money talks. It starts rumors about careers and complicity and speaks of the tragedies and triumphs of our social lives. ”

Things change and work changes. Right now I like the idea of enveloping a space and getting messages across that connect to the world in ways that seem familiar but are different. ”

I think I developed language skills to deal with threat. It's the girl thing to do-you know, instead of pulling out a gun. ”

I always say that I'm an artist who works with pictures and words, so I think that the different aspects of my activity, whether it's writing criticism, or doing visual work that incorporates writing, or teaching, or curating, is all of a single cloth, and I don't make any separation in terms of those practices. ”

Teaching at university isn't like teaching in an art school. ”