In the two years since the election–yes, it’s been two years, somehow–a massive amount of art has been made about politics in America. But a Barbara Kruger piece from 1990, back when Donald Trump was busy bankrupting casinos in Atlantic City, still hits harder.
The piece, Untitled (Questions), is a list of nine questions rendered across the 30-foot-tall wall of the Museum of Contemporary Art‘s Geffen building in downtown Los Angeles:
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?
The piece was first installed in 1990, when MOCA was just 11 years old. An anonymous donor paid for the mural to be resurrected ahead of the midterm elections, but the museum has plans to leave it up until the 2020 presidential elections. On its Instagram, MOCA posted a series of videos of the installation, which will be complete this weekend, accompanied by information about voter registration.
Kruger’s work has remained incredibly powerful through the decades, a reminder that the things we’re debating today–patriotism, fascism, sexism, war, and the prison industrial complex, for starters–aren’t novel in the least. In a statement, Kruger described the enduring relevance of Untitled (Questions), saying, “It’s both tragic and disappointing that this work, 30 years later, might still have some resonance.”
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