Jam Life into Death: The ‘Cold War’ of the Stereotype and the ‘Ethics of Failure’ in the Art of Barbara Kruger

Abstract

Barbara Kruger's work is discussed as an exploration of the ambivalently hidden violence of the stereotype (in line with Homi Bhabha and Craig Owens's theorisations). The author proposes a discussion of the semiotic‐ideological place the stereotype occupies in the socioeconomic, political and cultural order of Western societies, based on the historical notion of the latent fear of the Other proper to the Cold War period. Focusing on the female stereotype, its specific concealed violence and major perils, Kruger's practice is related to three concepts borrowed from Rosalyn Deutsche (who has, in turn, borrowed them from Virginia Woolf and Jacqueline Rose) – failure, inadequacy and derision. They allow for an understanding of Kruger's work as an ‘ethico‐political space’ (in Deutsche's terminology), despite the problems entailed by the artist's chosen media and appropriationist strategies. Finally, Freud's discussion of compulsive repetition, trauma, death drive and pleasure principle contribute to new, albeit always open and paradoxical, perspectives.