Image and Text

The context and meaning of an image can change dramatically with the use of text or typography. This can make an image easier to interpret in the way the artist or photographer intended.
Furthermore the text can not only be used to help or aid the viewer to understand the subject, but can also be used to tell the audience the name or names of the subjects or objects within the image.
One word in an image can change the whole meaning of it.
Rene Magritte, Belgian surrealist artist, used text in the image above “This is not an apple”. This makes the viewer go back and question the image. The five French words above the apple completely change the meaning of the image.

Barbara Kruger was an American graphic artist. She worked with black and white photographs. Kruger overlaid captions over her work. This was in white text with bright red backdrops. This makes text stand out and feel as if it is jumping off the image. Barbara Kruger produced work that was not just aesthetically pleasing and there to be admired, but it is actually sending out a message using image and text to bring the world’s problems and issues into Kruger’s art.

“I am an artist who works with pictures and words. Sometimes that stuff ends up in different kinds of sites and contexts which determine what it means and it looks like.”