Getty Images: Barbara Alper/Contributor
Barbara Kruger, New York City, April 1989.
Barbara Kruger’s work is a postmodern message for the post-grunge generation. Her I Shop Therefore I Am (1990) is a graphic masterpiece, a Futura font touchstone for likeminded alternate-truth seekers. In 1997, she plastered the Malcolm X quote “Give your brain as much attention as you do your hair and you’ll be a thousand times better off” on New York buses and reused it in her Belief+Doubt installation at the Hirschhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington in 2012 and 2016. She said in a Complex interview that she loved the quote because “it’s both serious and funny. It’s both critical and pleasurable. I think that’s a great way of making meaning.” Kruger’s hair is a helix of corkscrews with its own postmodern twist—reminiscent of a 1980s mall-kid vibe yet confrontationally carefree. She’s also a fan of Tabatha Takes Over, an old Bravo television series in which the host troubleshoots hair salons that need a revamp.