Remote Control: Power, Cultures, and the World of Appearances

by Barbara Kruger

In these essays and reviews, written over the last decade, Barbara Kruger addresses that power with intelligence and wit, in the hope of engaging both our criticality and our dreams of affirmation.

Who speaks? Who is silent? Who is seen? Who is absent? These questions focus on how cultures are constructed through pictures and words, how we are seduced into a world of appearances: into a pose of who we are and aren't. On both an emotional and an economic level, images and texts have the power to make us rich or poor. In these essays and reviews, written over the last decade, Barbara Kruger addresses that power with intelligence and wit, in the hope of engaging both our criticality and our dreams of affirmation.

Genres: Art, Nonfiction, Essays, Feminism, Philosophy

251 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1993

Reviews

[Ebony Earwig · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good collection of essays and delivered with a nice amount of crankiness and wit. It's made me want to watch more films, and given me some insight into how I consume visual media and the assumptions it feeds into me. Maybe not a book I'd highly recommend but glad to have found it on my bookshelf (I have no idea what it was doing there, maybe left by a friend).

[Michael Dipietro · Rating 1 out of 5]

I just started this, and so far, its pretty lame. Kruger's micro-essays are about 2 pages long each, which would be fine if she had anything of depth to say - to the depth you can reach in a handful of paragraphs - or if there was any continuity between them. Instead, she subscribes to a vehement style that doesn't say much, but with a lot of unnecessary bile and a conviction that clouds the lack of substance. All pomp and no circumstance, as Katrina would say.

These were apparently all previously published in newspapers and magazines, but why oh why would there be apparently no editing to make them make more sense as an anthology? There's already been plenty of lines that end in "...just like the newspaper you are now reading." Embarrassing! And her topics are somewhat dated and irrelevant - when was the last time anybody talked about Howard Stern? They don't hold up much over time.

It reminds me a lot of a kind of writing I was interested in doing - and did - during my thesis year in school, a kind of pen-notes of "I'm smart so it's ok if I don't support my claims all that strongly" that wanders all over the place. It obviously takes after Debord and situationist ideas, the same arc of my own interest in this kind of style. But someone like Edmund White does this infinitely better; Kruger's mini-articles pack about the same punch as her artwork, which I am not a fan of. All in all, it's bad, but it's good for me to read things that are this kind of bad sometimes...

Then again, I stopped because I found it too insufferable.

[Danny Devine · Rating 5 out of 5]

barbara kruger is one of my favorites for the past 5 or 6 years, her video installation is so moving and powerful i wish eeryone could witness one, especially "twelve".

[Rob Christopher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Her hilarious essays on McDonald's and "The Price Is Right" are classics. She's sarcastic, razor-sharp.

[Jess · Rating 5 out of 5]

How it took me five odd years to finish this is beyond me because it is an excellent anthology of essays and writings.

[Afsana Mousavi · Rating 2 out of 5]

“Being a man can be about pleasure but belonging to a manhood is usually about desire. Which is kind of sad because desire only exists where pleasure is absent. Manhood is what you’re supposed to want.”

Wanted else from this—I love what Kruger does to criticism, though. And there were nevertheless suspended passages which overwhelmed my overall mid feelings about this collection: “When you are the most nothing you say ‘I want you inside of me.’”

[Cambria · Rating 4 out of 5]

I may be biased because I love Barbra Kruger's work, but I enjoyed this collection of essays. Some essays were better than others, but overall I enjoyed them because of Kruger's critical analysis of media consumption. Most of these essays were written in the 70s and 80s and are still applicable and even more relevant today. I also really enjoyed the poems at the end, that was a nice touch.

[emilia nicholson-fajardo · Rating 2 out of 5]

too banky

[Tatiana · Rating 4 out of 5]

I aspire to BK's level of seeing, critiquing, and above all, snarkiness.

[Maria Hiers · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reread from when i was 16 lol

[William · Rating 3 out of 5]

While Kruger is a very skilled writer/artist, this collection of essays & reviews feels very unfocused. The majority of the book is dedicated to film reviews & criticism, which is (while interesting), hard to contextualize without seeing the films beforehand. The last section is probably where her ideology and writing shines through the best.

[Ivan Labayne]

binabalandra ni kruger ang pleasure, panlaban sa desire, na lagi't-lagi namang stifled. pinagninilayan pa nang unti kung mas malapit sya ke teresa ebert o kay hilary clinton, kay monique wilson o kay mocha uson.

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

great artist.