Armani Exchange does Barbara Kruger

       

armani exchange and barbara kruger, originally uploaded by alexo05.

I’ve been doing research on Barbara Kruger, the prolific American conceptual and visual artist that gained prominence in the 80s by combining photography and graphic design to create compositions that openly attacked/questioned/mocked the viewer into thinking about what they were seeing.

Well, a funny thing happened on my way to the mall, or shall I say, as I cruised the mall on black Friday. Passing by the Armani Exchange store in the Mall of Georgia in Buford, I glanced at the inside of the store and, whaddayaknow, the familiar Futura bold font, the familiar white letters, the familiar red background.

All four walls of the store featured this iconic design, as well as the literature on the current sales going on. Since taking photographs inside a mall is a no-no here in Georgia (at least, I think it is), I was only able to sneak a few pics with my iPhone.

They also had this mirror display on the window out front, with the words “YOU MAKE ME FEEL,”center aligned, with no spacing between the lines. That phrase is the centerpiece for their current marketing campaign, and it’s also visible (in Kruger-like Futura font) on the A|X website.

I searched the Armani site for some kind of press release on the possibility that Kurger herself was involved with this, but didn’t find anything. What’s interesting/ironic is that Kruger was invovled with an American apparel company to produce an article of clothing, a GAP T-Shirt commemorating the Whitney Biennial.

And I was beginning to wonder that Kruger had fallen off relevancy. Funny how the truth smacked me in the face.

Now, I myself have tinkered with some of my own Kruger-insipired creations, and Kurger herlself was an avid marketer of her own art. So Armani may only be guilty of being un-original. But it just doesn’t sit well that Armani Exchange is using her style as the basis for their entire marketing campaign.