Barbara Kruger is part of the Pictures Generation and started her career as a graphic designer in 1960s New York, where she gained an insight into the world of advertising and marketing strategies, and the power that words and images possess. This made a significant impact on Kruger’s artistic language, which later took the form of collages, featuring text and already-existing images taken from magazines and advertisements. This work is an example of this. As in other works by Kruger, we see a black-and-white photograph with a white, superimposed, forceful caption in Futura Bold Oblique font, all framed by one of Kruger’s characteristic red frames. The text reads: “You make history when you do business.’ The use of the pronoun “you” means that the work is addressing the viewer directly. Kruger often uses such a statement: for example, when raising questions about gender identity.
This work features a couple of well-dressed men in highly-polished shoes and the legs of a woman wearing high-heeled shoes in the foreground of the photo. By juxtaposing the text with the image, Kruger seems to be directing our attention to an inequality and the fact that historically it is men who made the money and did business, and consequently also men who formed the basis for the narrative of our common history over the years. As part of a feminist slant, Kruger’s works seek to shed light on how media presentation reinforces gender differences, also questioning the stereotypical expectations and perceptions that are particularly associated with the female gender. So it could be that this work is the picture of a woman about to break into an otherwise male-dominated area.