Barbara Kruger | I shop therefore I am

Barbara Kruger

I shop therefore I am

Cologne, Germany: Kölnischer Kunstverein, 1990

43.9 x 27.3 x 10.7 cm.

Edition of 9000

Barbara Kruger’s reworking of Rene Descartes’ best known dictum ("Cogito, ergo sum") has appeared as a canvas book bag, t-shirt, magnet and postcard. But this simple paper shopping bag had the widest reach. 

Only a handful of artists' multiples can claim edition sizes higher than nine-thousand, but most of the bags adorned with Kruger’s signature text conflating consumerism with identity no longer remain, destroyed by the consumerism they gently mock. They were distributed as a functional and ephemeral shopping bag, and few survived the use value. 

The art market gets the last laugh, though, with unused copies framed copies to sell for upwards of two thousand dollars now, despite the high edition size and disposable nature of the production. 

"Prior to making it, I had read Walter Benjamin, and I’ll paraphrase a quote: “If the soul of the commodity existed, it would want to nestle in the home and hearth of every shopper that passed its way.” I thought that was amazing. When reading Benjamin’s Moscow Diary, I realized that he was a compulsive shopper. He’s always shopping for something, and it was about framing his image of perfection.

I remember when the works of artists in my peer group were first being discussed by critics and first being sold. I thought if my work was developing this commodity status, I had to address it in the work.”

- Barbara Kruger