Another, 2008
Barbara Kruger is one of America’s major artists and she has been an important teacher throughout her career. She taught at UCSD for five years and now teaches at UCLA. She had a powerful work in the Venice Biennale, 2005, which won the Leone d’Oro, a major international honor.
Another transforms the central space of the new addition to the UCSD Price Center, one of the busiest sites on campus. It can be seen from all three levels of the vast atrium. This is a complex social territory combining dining, studying, shopping, and socializing; it is comprised of both grandly scaled places and intimate and compressed areas.
The mural on the large interior wall that dominates the main space depicts a massive double image of clocks which is punctuated by rectangular units containing the following phrases: Another day, Another night, Another idea, Another dream, Another song, Another fear, Another job, Another exam, Another smile, Another book, Another sweater, Another car, Another love, Another life. The clocks’ consideration of time, coupled with these phrases, suggests the increments of moments, objects, and events that comprise our days and nights. Along the bottom and in the middle of this image, are two running (LED) texts showing live current news feed. This adds another level of interest as well as meaning and suggests how our lives are, to some degree, culturally inflected, constructed and contained.
This combination of graphic image and moving text creates a space which functions on both a pictorial and a time-based level. The visual motif of the wall is extended to the floor by the use of terrazzo rectangles placed throughout the area. These color blocks contain quotes from prominent figures in both the arts and sciences. The expansiveness of the wall and floor anchor the area with powerful images and, with the texts, create a space of visual pleasure, comfort, and relevancy.
