Words and images

Gran Fury was originally formed as a community art protesting group to tackle the AIDS crisis in the 80's. This was a big success form their very bold statements and imagery. These statements were plastered around the city taking full use of bold advertising and realising the effects of strong statements, movements, issues, language and typography. Other projects include "read my lips" and "women Don't Get AIDS (They Just Die From It)."

http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/dgkeysearchresult.cfm?parent_id=1060927&word=>

this work connects with Barbara Kruger. Both Gran Fury and Barbra Kruger are making use of of the IMPACT of heavy imagery, heavy topics and heavy typography. They both focus on the strong pull between negative and positive space. They both are very successful with powerfully combining two bold forms of communication turning it into a very intense statement.

She is very playful with the interaction of iconic imagery and text. A combination between marketing quotes, politics and pop imagery. Using bold colour combination to keep things simple and to the point such as red white and black has become her signature style.
She is famous for such quotes "I shop, therefor I AM" and "your body is a battle ground".
This deisgns is made to be presented in busy urban areas, one of the reasons for its fast hard hitting impact when you first see her work. She focuses on block forms and tones in its simplicity but also to keep the function flowing.

Barbara Krugers work is strongly based on the art of literacy and typography just like Josephs Kosuths work. Both in their take of keeping designs minimilisitc to not take from the message, or add distraction to the rest of the design.

Joseph Kosuth was creating art during the 60's a bustling period of experimentation and colour. He begins to explore with lighting and typography combining it with composition and colour.

Here is some more of his work on UBUWEB http://www.ubu.com/concept/kosuth_five.html

Joseph Kosuth plays mainly only with text and light, just like Jenny Holzer. Both working with the idea of sculpture and installations.
causing art to focus on the word of mouth. Letting the people create their own senerio and emotion from the text with little influence from the location and typography but this can be played around with.

Jenny Holzer's work is based on big scale, the topics and language she uses to talk about is also on a big scale. Jenny is about communicating to the people. Instant though and acknowledgement from any viewer.

Jasper johns, Weiner, and jenny Holzer all projected typography into noon common materials, testing and pushing its boundries to see how far they can take their poetry and messages.
---- http://www.ubu.com/papers/mcelroy.html

Jenny Jolzer is playing with text, using it almost in an instalation manner, placing it in locations and seeing the reaction. This is the same that Lawerence Weiner does, he likes to use line as an acsessory to help him support his artistic message.

Lawrence Weiner is a poet/artist who liked to contruct a peice of text and put it back together visually.

People, buying my stuff, can take it wherever they go and can rebuild it if they choose. If they keep it in their heads, that’s fine too. They don’t have to buy it to have it – they can have it just by knowing it. Anyone making a reproduction of my art is making art just as valid as art as if I had made it.” -Lawrence Weiner from - http://www.ubu.com/papers/weiner_statements.html
Lawrences rules:
-1. The artist may construct the piece.
2. The piece may be fabricated.
3. The piece need not be built.

Lawerence Weiner and Fillip both played with poetry, sound of text and composition. How does text visually flow? It is almost as if they both painted with text.

If you listen to this recording of Fillips poetry you can see the motion of the words running through your head, pricisly the same image as his typography art.
http://www.ubu.com/sound/marinetti.html

Fillipo was born in 1876 in Egypt but moved to Italy, where he persured his development as a writer, novelist, dramatist (prahaps where he got the desire for the motion of the words on paper) and a strong partisipator of FUTERISM.

This sense of inuition, freedom, creativity and DADAist expressionism is highly prevelant in Fillips work and found in Andre Bretts theories.

Andre Breton is a french poet and took the lead in the surrealist movement triggering the phillosophy with his ideas.

"Psychic automatism in its pure state, by which one proposes to express -- verbally, by means of the written word, or in any other manner -- the actual functioning of thought. Dictated by the thought, in the absence of any control exercised by reason, exempt from any aesthetic or moral concern." - Andre Breton
- http://www.ubu.com/papers/mussman_toby-surrealist_film.html

Andre Breton experiments alot just like Jasper Johns, applying instinctive marks that are not always so clear, they ask as much as they awnser to the viewer.