In 1990, artist Barbara Kruger displayed her huge piece, Untitled (Questions) on a wall of the Temporary Contemporary of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles. It listed nine questions across the 30-foot-tall wall:
Who is beyond the law?
Who is bought and sold?
Who is free to choose?
Who does time?
Who follows orders?
Who salutes the longest?
Who prays the loudest?
Who dies first?
Who laughs last?
MOCA has recently reinstalled the work on its north wall. The questions remain as relevent today as they were almost thirty years ago. Kruger had this to say about her work’s sustained relevance:
I continue to try to address the issues of control, loyalty, hope, fear, and the uses and abuses of power…It’s both tragic and disappointing that this work, 30 years later, might still have some resonance.
As painful as they may be, sometimes living with questions lead us to answers we didn’t expect…
