Barbara Kruger takes art to new heights at the Hirshhorn

From the first step onto the escalator descending into the Hirshhorn Gallery’s famed rotunda, Barbara Kruger’s newest exhibit, Belief + Doubt, nearly screams at visitors, but in a positive way, as if coaxing them to step back and take another look. With text beginning on the underside of the escalator, viewers are immediately thrown into Kruger’s world, where “Belief + Doubt = Sanity,” with 12-foot questions and phrases covering the gallery from floor to ceiling in this wraparound installation.
Opening this week at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden for a three-year installation, Belief + Doubt draws in viewers with its loud, provocative, and unconventional gallery presentation, which unquestionably succeeds in Kruger’s aim of using art to promote engagement.
On a wall in the gallery, Kruger cites “power, desire, money, and faith” as the exhibit’s central themes, with each phrase or question inspiring viewers to “stop, think, and sometimes even laugh.” Questions such as “Who speaks? Who is silent? Who is heard?” contrast others like “When was the last time you laughed?,” inspiring different reactions among visitors while simultaneously underscoring Kruger’s reflection on power structures in our society.
For Kruger, deconstructing the meaning of the words themselves is significant to her aim of transforming “reading into a dynamic, public activity,” as she explained in an interview with Richard Prince. “Pictures and words seem to become the rallying points for certain assumptions.”
Playing on the multi-layered meaning of the text, the design and position of each phrase around the exhibition also incorporates the architecture of the space. For instance, the underside of the escalator ominously reads “Don’t look down on anyone.”
The impact of these simple but profound aphorisms and inquiries is further emboldened by the contrasting color scheme of black and red backgrounds with the white bold-faced text, which in a printed vinyl notably resembles a glossy magazine. Known for her use of the written word to challenge our popular consumer-driven culture, Kruger shows her creative use of irony by inverting the familiar glossy photo or glitzy headline into something thought-provoking.
This sense of irony carries over to the museum shop, which sells Hirshhorn paraphernalia alongside totes, mugs, and t-shirts with Kruger maxims, such as “You want it. You buy it. You forget it.” One of her more famous prints, an image with text overlay that says, “I shop therefore I am,” sarcastically mocks customers considering a purchase. Almost as if Kruger is daring you to buy into our consumer culture, the installation also continues on the shop floor, tiled with checkered phrases like, “Crave it.” and “Hate it.” alongside watchful eyes, staring up at shop patrons.
In this way, Kruger’s exhibit is an all-encompassing experience, with every component furthering Kruger’s larger intention of “introducing doubt” in a society where certainty seems to be valued above all else. Kruger explains this idea on the Hirshhorn website, when discussing the meaning behind the exhibit’s title:“Belief is tricky because left to its own devices it can court a kind of surety, an unquestioning allegiance that fears doubt and destroys difference.”
Belief + Doubt can be unsettling in the way it takes hold of the viewer, its text forcefully assaulting its audience with unanswered questions touching the core of modern society. But through the installation, Kruger illustrates, if nothing else, the many reasons why we can’t stop asking questions.