Barbara Kruger at the Guggenheim Bilbao: Another Day. Another Night.
The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao presents the exhibition "Barbara Kruger. Another Day. Another Night" on view in Bilbao, Spain, until November 9th, 2025. The show offers a unique opportunity to explore the visual universe of one of the most radical and influential contemporary artists. Combining striking images, direct phrases, and immersive installations, Kruger creates a path that forces us to rethink how we see — and how we see ourselves — in today’s world.
LEFT: Barbara Kruger, Untitled (Who Speaks? Who Is Silent?), 1984, Photograph and text on paper, 21.6 x 13.7 cm, Courtesy of the artist and Sprüth Magers. Photo: Robert Wedemeyer; RIGHT: Barbara Kruger, The Milk of Dreams – 59th International Art Exhibition, Exhibition view, Venice Biennale, April 23 – November 27, 2022. Courtesy of the artist and Sprüth Magers. Photo: Timo Ohler
An artist who confronts power
Barbara Kruger was born in 1945 in Newark, New Jersey, and since the 1970s she has been dedicated to challenging and subverting the visual codes that govern our society. Throughout more than fifty years of her career, Kruger urges the public to confront the power structures that shape our identities, desires, and beliefs.
LEFT: Barbara Kruger, No Comment, Exhibition view, ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum, Aarhus, November 29, 2024 – April 21, 2025. Courtesy of the artist, ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum, and Sprüth Magers. Photo: Anders Sune Berg; RIGHT: Barbara Kruger, No Comment, Exhibition view, ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum, Aarhus, November 29, 2024 – April 21, 2025. Courtesy of the artist, ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum, Sprüth Magers, and David Zwirner. Photo: Anders Sune Berg
The artist has developed a unique visual language, characterized by her striking use of bold typography, black-and-white images, and short, direct, and provocative slogans. Inspired by the aesthetics of advertising — yet with a critical and subversive intent — Kruger exposes the mechanisms of persuasion, consumption, and manipulation that permeate contemporary society.
Through works that explore public spaces — such as murals, billboards, magazine covers, and urban interventions — Kruger breaks traditional barriers between art and viewer, bringing her work closer to broad and unexpected audiences. Her slogans like "Your body is a battleground" and "I shop therefore I am" have become visual and political icons, resonating with feminist, social, and cultural debates.
LEFT: Barbara Kruger, Untitled (No Comment), 2020 (stills), Three-channel video installation, color, sound, 9 min 25 s, Courtesy of the artist and Sprüth Magers; RIGHT: Barbara Kruger, Untitled (No Comment), 2020 (stills), Three-channel video installation, color, sound, 9 min 25 s, Courtesy of the artist and Sprüth Magers
A total sensory experience
In "Another Day. Another Night.", Kruger presents a selection of both historical and recent works that occupy various spaces of the Guggenheim Bilbao. Through videos, large-scale projections, mural prints, and sound installations, the artist creates an experience that fully invades the senses.
As visitors walk through the exhibition, they are confronted by words that leap off the walls, sounds that echo throughout the space, and images that seem to pulse with their own rhythm. Short yet deeply meaningful phrases transform each room into an invitation — or a provocation — to question the values, hierarchies, and narratives that shape our daily lives.
LEFT: No Comment, Exhibition view, ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum, Aarhus, November 29, 2024 – April 21, 2025. Courtesy of the artist, ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum, and Sprüth Magers. Photo: Anders Sune Berg; RIGHT: Barbara Kruger, Please Cry, Exhibition view, Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin, April 29 – August 28, 2022.Courtesy of the artist and Sprüth Magers / Mies van der Rohe, VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2022. Photo: Timo Ohler
Kruger addresses universal themes such as power, gender, identity, and consumerism, but she does so with a language so direct and urgent that each message feels as if it is speaking personally to each viewer. In a world saturated with information and visual stimuli, she forces us to stop, look, read, and, above all, reflect.
Between confrontation and self-awareness
This exhibition is an experience that activates the visitor, transforming them into an integral part of the work. Kruger invites us — or rather, challenges us — to decipher her slogans and reflect on our own beliefs, habits, and contradictions. The phrases, always direct and yet ambiguous at the same time, act as critical mirrors: they return to the audience distorted images of who we are or who we think we are. This tension between the individual and the collective, between the intimate and the public, is an essential hallmark of the artist’s work.
LEFT: Barbara Kruger, Untitled (Money Talks), 1984, Photograph and text on paper, 16.5 x 20.3 cm, Courtesy of the artist and Sprüth Magers. Photo: Ben Westoby; RIGHT: Barbara Kruger, Untitled (Worth Every Cent), 1987, Photograph and text on paper, 26.7 x 15.6 cm, Courtesy of the artist and Sprüth Magers. Photo: Ben Westoby
"Another Day. Another Night." confirms Barbara Kruger as one of the greatest artists of our time, a creator who transforms the language of advertising into a tool of resistance, turning the exhibition space into a territory for radical questioning.
By the end of the visit, it is impossible to leave untouched: each phrase, each image, each sound echoes in the mind as an invitation to rethink the world and ourselves.
LOT-ART SERVICES FOR COLLECTORS
NEW! Best Deals: Bid on highly liquid lots with an estimate below the historical sale price. Make smart investment decisions powered by Market Analytics. Discover Best Deals >>
Market Analytics: Lot-Art big data analytics assess the liquidity, actual value, investment risk and profitability of fine art (contemporary art, modern art, old masters) and luxury collectibles (timepieces), enabling informed investment decisions within a strategy of portfolio diversification. Discover Market Analytics >>
Lot-Art Memberships: Receive Personalized Alerts on your favourite artists and collectibles at auction worldwide to never miss a bid! Subscribe now >>
Lot-Art.com is the world's largest search engine & aggregator of art and collectibles, linking to 3800+ auction houses! Find best deals from your favorite artists and brands among 1 million lots for sale every day in our upcoming section >>
LOT-ART | The Art Investment Platform
Lot-Art.com is the largest search engine & aggregator for auctions of art and collectibles linking to 3800+ auction houses! Find best deals from your favorite artists and brands among 1 million lots for sale every day in our upcoming section.
LOT-ART | The Art Investment Platform
contact@lot-art.com
|
|
|
|
|---|
Don't want these emails anymore? |
|
|
|---|
|
