Barbara Kruger’s Trampling Boots and Other Futures
Today is a very special Ephra on the road day, because we are not guests in a studio, but exceptionally in a museum – the New National Gallery. Actually, you don’t have to go inside the imposing building to see the exhibition of the artist Barbara Kruger: Through the huge glass panes, we can already see from outside that the room is almost empty, except for a few screens and thousands of letters that cover the entire floor in red, black and white. Since Barbara Kruger lives in the USA and is currently not in Berlin, Felicitas welcomes us. She is an art educator at the Neue Nationalgalerie and is very eager to see how we like this exhibition, which has no pictures but lots of words.
After being pushed inside the museum by the glass revolving door, we walk down the wide staircase to the checkroom and are impressed by the shiny stone, the dark wood and the imposing toilet rooms, which are almost as big as our classroom. Even though we wonder why such a beautiful house is not actually used for living, we think it is good that all people are allowed to come here. Because here you feel a bit like you are famous!
Back in the exhibition, the smell of gymnasiums rises to our noses. This is because the letters were not painted directly onto the floor, but printed onto long sheets of vinyl and rolled out. We walk on them for a while. In the process, we notice that the room seems quite full because of the bold letters, even though it’s actually empty. We learn that the texts are partly by famous writers and partly by the artist herself. Some are very short and inspired by social media posts, and we can also spot a few smileys. We take a closer look at one of the sentences: “If you want to get a picture of the future, imagine a boot stomping on the human face, forever!” This quote is from a book written by author George Orwell shortly after World War II. The story “1984” is set in the future and warns of state violence and surveillance. So Orwell painted a very dark picture of the future. Together we think about what we want and imagine for the future. We then paint, write and glue this together on a huge sheet of paper: There is the wish for organic cars, for equal rights for all genders, that there will never be war again. We wish for people to be able to spend more time with their families, for water to be saved and for all animals to be free. Some want ice cream for the rest of their lives, to celebrate birthdays every day, or to become superheroes. Someone else wants people to laugh more because humor is the greatest emotion you can have. Also, we desperately need the official right to play!
Our teacher wants to help us put the best ideas for the future into practice as soon as possible. We set off back to school, carrying the large roll of paper in our luggage and the thought that art can not only depict things that already exist, but can also create realities that are still far in the future ...