Science & Tech Quote by Barbara Kruger

Kruger’s complaint about cost lands like a backhanded confession: the artist who made her name skewering consumer culture is stuck paying its bill. The line is disarmingly practical - construction, objects, technology - yet it’s also a map of how contemporary art gets made and validated. The “whole installation thing” isn’t just a medium; it’s a system of expectations. Museums want immersion. Biennials want scale. Audiences want an Instagrammable environment that reads instantly, photographs cleanly, and justifies the trip. Expense becomes a proxy for seriousness.

Her phrasing matters. “My work” suggests authorship and message, but the cost drivers she lists are infrastructural, almost industrial. It implies a quiet shift from the lone auteur to the production pipeline: fabricators, AV techs, shipping, insurance, handlers, programmers. In other words, the art world’s version of a film crew - and the same question follows: who can afford to make work at this altitude?

The subtext is institutional critique without the slogan. Kruger is famous for declarative text that names power; here she’s describing how power operates through logistics. Installation is not a neutral choice but an economic filter that favors artists with backing, galleries with capital, and institutions with deep pockets. Even when the work is “critical,” its material demands can tether it to the very market dynamics it targets. The irony isn’t that Kruger notices the price tag. It’s that the price tag may be part of what makes the work legible as “important” in the first place.