How a 1989 poster became a fixture on the front lines in the battle over abortion rights
For abortion rights advocates, Barbara Kruger’s iconic feminist image “Untitled (Your body is a battleground)” remains as relevant today as when it was first released in 1989.
Following the May 2, 2022, leak of Supreme Court Associate Justice Samuel Alito’s anti-abortion draft decision, Google searches for Kruger spiked. Searches spiked again after the official ruling was released on June 24, 2022.
A leading pioneer of appropriation art, Kruger leveraged her skills as a graphic designer to make works of art from readily available images. Art critic Isabelle Graw describes Kruger’s signature style as “grainy black-and-white photographs with a typical typeface (Futura Bold Italic) in red-and-black blocks of text-like color fields.”