Barbara kruger/supreme: who's hijacking whom?

Career[]

Early cases

In October 1990 Zellner was appointed by the Illinois Supreme Court to handle Larry Eyler’s Death Row case, her first major case. Larry Eyler was convicted for the 1984 kidnapping and murder of 16-year-old Daniel Bridges, but was also believed to have murdered about 20 other teenage boys and young men in a series of killings committed between 1982 and 1984 in the Midwestern States. Eyler always insisted he was innocent of the one murder he was convicted of. Despite the victim being stabbed and dismembered in Eyler’s own appartment, Eyler claimed he only helped dispose of the body.

While working on the Eyler case Zellner began her own law-firm.

Zellner stated Eyler had begun compiling a list of his victims shortly after she had been appointed as his legal representative in 1990 in an effort to obtain a plea bargain whereby his sentence would be commuted to one of life imprisonment. The deal did not go through. In the spring of 1993 Eyler finally gave Zellner permission to disclose his list of 21 victims after his death.

In 1994 Eyler died of AIDS-related complications. On 8 March, two days after his death, Zellner held a press conference detailing the killings. Shortly before this Zellner had prepared a further appeal disputing her client’s conviction in the Bridges murder.

Following the Eyler case Zellner vowed never again to represent a client who she knows or believes is guilty. Zellner took cases of many other people claiming to be innocent, including the Roscetti Four (murder), Kevin Fox (murder and rape), Ryan Ferguson (murder) and Melissa Calusinski (murder) and has been succesful in most of them.

Steven Avery case

Zellner was twice offered Avery’s case, but didn’t take it until after the release of Making a Murderer in December 2015. According to Zellner she initially did not pick up on it due the evidence against Avery, but after watching the documentary series she changed her mind.

In 2016 Zellner filed a motion for post-conviction scientific testing, requesting a very large amount of evidence from the Steven Avery case so she could subject the evidence to contemporary testing methods unavailable at the time of Avery’s conviction, hoping to uncover evidence leading to the «real killer», or evidence tampering. That same year Zellner settled with the State to release a small portion of the evidence she originally requested.

Roughly half a year later Zellner filed the Motion for Post-conviction Relief. Though Zellner would file many more motions after this, the PCR-motion is her «main» motion, requesting an evidentiary hearing for her client. The main arguments from her 1,200-page motion center around ineffective assistance by Avery’s previous attorneys, alleged withholding of evidence by the prosecution, newly discovered evidence and ethical violations by special prosecutor Ken Kratz.

The PCR-motion was denied in October that same year, while Zellner was in the midst of further investigation. Zellner tried to appeal the Judge’s decision hoping to get a chance to introduce more newly discovered evidence and obtain more evidence from the State she had just requested. The many subsequent motions Zellner filed to appeal the Judge’s decision were all denied in November 2017.

Despite this setback, Zellner continued her campaign for Avery throughout 2018 and 2019. Zellner filed many motions on behalf of her client, most notably a motion about the discovery of a CD with pornographic material copied from the Dassey family computer hard drive that Zellner claims had never been shared with the defense, and another motion about the discovery of the fact that certain charred bone material found outside the Avery property were given to the Halbach family without Avery’s consent. Both of these motions, as well as others filed around that time, were denied.

In 2020 Zellner filed a motion with the Court of Appeals in trying to appeal the result of her efforts so far. As of June 2021 this motion is fully briefed (meaning the State has filed its response to the motion and Zellner a response to the State’s response). As of November 2020 the briefs have been submitted to the Court of Appeals.

In 2021 Zellner requested the Court of Appeals to sent her case back to the circuit court (without cancelling the appeal). The request was denied in July 2021, as well as her entire appeal.

Why did Kathleen Stock quit her job at the University of Sussex?

In October 2021, Stock quit her role at the University of Sussex after students launched a campaign called “Stock Out”.

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The campaign called on the university to terminate Stock’s employment over her trans-exclusionary views and position as an LGB Alliance trustee.

LGBTQ+ students at the university had branded Stock a “transphobe” and accused her of “espousing a bastardised version of ‘radical feminism’ that excludes and endangers trans people”.

Labour’s previous shadow minister for women and equalities, Taiwo Owatemi, commented on the situation by condemning the LGB Alliance and backing peaceful protests against Stock.

But government equalities minister Kemi Badenoch defended Stock at the time, insisting: “She is probably in step with the majority of the population.”

Develop her iconic style in red, black and white

With her experience as a graphic designer and her eye as a photographer, she creates in 1979 this famous graphic style that will become iconic: capital letters in Futura Bold or Helvetica Ultra Condensed on a background of advertising images from the 50’s that she enlarges on large banners, with three colors: black, red and white. Her first exhibition took place the same year at the P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center at MoMA (New York). On her photomontages she slips large messages that give food for thought: my face is your fortune, your role is to divide and conquer, free love, you kill time.

Barbara Kruger’s work is engaged, political, philosophical, and sends us back to our consumerist and sexist habits, in a world that is just as much. She allows us to take distance by questioning (among other things) gender, the relationship to power and sex, racism, and our relationship to objects, through images and texts put in resonance. If the association image-text-incitation reminds us of advertising slogans, it allows here to make passers-by think.

The use of the pronoun «I» or «you» makes it possible to include the spectator (and especially the spectatrix!) in his works, and to invite him to question himself on his habits or his situation. Barbara Kruger will say ironically in an interview of 1991 that she is «interested in images and words because they have the specific power to define who we are and who we are not,» and that she developed «the power to handle words», because it is «what girls do, failing to be able to handle weapons. She takes up Goethe’s sentence, «we are slaves to the objects that surround us» or declines Marilyn’s face in the manner of Warhol, by silk-screening impactful words, by contrast.

Fighting for women’s rights

Two years later, in support of a free-choice abortion march in Washington in 1989, she created her second most influential work: Untitled (your body is a battleground), as anti-abortion waves swept through the United States. It will be declined in French (savoir c’est pouvoir), and even in Polish, to defend the same causes. This silk-screened poster features a female face separated into two equal parts and treated in negative. Taken from an advertising poster, probably a cosmetics ad, this face first denounces the use of the woman’s body as a stereotyped product of society, and dictated by its laws. The woman does not belong to herself anymore.

The face cut in two perfectly symmetrical parts illustrates the opposite injunctions that are placed on her face (and more broadly her body), according to the parties. Originally, pro-abortion and anti-abortion. The play of negative colors distorts her face, half angel, half demon, and raises the ambivalences of the posture of the woman, sometimes docile, sometimes fighting.

By taking a step back, we can read more widely the oppositions between women and men, women and the stereotyped view of men on women, the masculinist society that transforms women into objects and women into flesh. The phase «your body is a battlefield» comes to underline the fights which take place on this body, her body, which she must reappropriate above all. Barbara Kruger thus denounces the position and the fights of the woman in a world which considers her only by her appearance. More broadly, she raises the question of the norm and the look that society gives to all those who emancipate themselves from it.

Below, Warhol on the left with the mention «not beautiful enough — not pathetic enough — not man enough — not real enough — not cruel enough» and Marilyn Monroe «not good enough — not skinny enough — not anything at all — not ironic enough — not stupid enough». And the pair of glasses «your look hits my profile», which invites the male gaze, the famous «male gaze» to question itself.

Who is copying who?

The image of the t-shirt with Kate Moss (above) is itself taken from a Calvin Klein advertisement that Supreme appropriated… To push the envelope a little further, in 2004 the brand Married to the Mob also plays the game of graphic appropriation and launches t-shirts and caps named «Supreme Bitch». The designer got the authorization from his friend Jebbia (founder of Supreme). Rihanna, Cara and a whole bunch of international stars are rushing to wear them. Who’s whose bitch? Ironically ironic.

But in 2013 Supreme flips and sues them with a $10 million lawsuit for «counterfeiting, unfair competition and forgery of a designation of origin, logo dilution and trademark infringement»! What’s amazing is that the Supreme trademark was only registered in 2011 and the logo… in 2013 at the conclusion of this lawsuit. We feel the bad players afraid to lose at their own game!

Barbara Kruger reacts this time by deploring a «ridiculous amalgam of small not cool buffoons» who wallow in stories of rights and money. She claims to be «waiting for everyone to come and sue her for copyright infringement.» Married to the Mob claimed to have launched «Supreme Bitch» to «criticize and parody the male dominance and misogyny of skate culture guys and the Supreme brand»…

Denouncing the consumer society

Like Warhol, Kruger’s art, which can be reproduced en masse thanks to silkscreen or digital printing, questions the very essence of art and intellectual property. Kruger owns neither the rights to the use of the Futura typography, nor the principle of artistic construction of colored text-rectangle on photo, which reminds rather the constructivist collages. From then on, her work deliberately dilutes the boundaries between the artist, the viewer and the work, which is no longer displayed in galleries but as a consumer good, or even an advertisement, while dialoguing with the consumer-collector.

In 1987 Barbara Kruger created one of her most famous works, which remains extremely topical: Untitled (I shop therefore I am). The decade of the 80’s is the decade of access to consumer credit and new markets, and the consumer has more and more power. On this work, a hand without precise gender holds a card, like a business card, which mentions: I shop therefore I am, diverting the famous thought of Descartes, «I think therefore I am». She will also print this image on kraft bags for shopping.

By replacing thought with consumption, Barbara Kruger criticizes the loss of meaning induced by the consumer society, which values having rather than being. She deplores the fact that the human being becomes a robot who no longer thinks but buys to exist. In the same way, she underlines that advertising generates doubts and guilt towards the representation of oneself in an ideal and unattainable world. The frenetic consumption comes to fill this gap between the expectation and the reality, and can contribute to deform this image of oneself.

The red text on a white background is inscribed as a manifesto, using specific markers from marketing strategies. Barbara Kruger first creates a visual contrast between black and white and color, which allows a double reading in two times between the image and the text. The color red, color of danger and desire, stimulates the reptilian brain and irresistibly attracts the eye. The red letters are reminiscent of advertising ads that abuse these techniques to better attract the eye of the consumer and make their message stand out in this visual ocean.

Змінила карате на футбол

Кетлін, яка виросла в баварському місті Ехінг, з самого дитинства почала захоплюватися карате і навіть брала участь у національних змаганнях.

Одного разу вона пішла з родиною на гру «Баварії». Сидячи на південній трибуні величезного стадіону, дівчина зрозуміла, що настав час відмовитися від бойових мистецтв і зосередитися на грі з м’ячем:

Вся справа в командному дусі. Моя команда завжди була моїм домом.

Незабаром Кетлін вирішила відмовитися від карате: через брак часу дівчина віддала перевагу футболу.

Її професійна кар’єра почалася в молодіжній команді Phönix Schlei^ heim — клуб на півночі Мюнхена, після чого Крюгер перейшла в Wacker Munich. Батько і брат Кетлін вболівають за «Баварію», і для них було особливим моментом, коли в 2003 році вона дебютувала на позиції півзахисника у другому складі жіночої «Баварії» — на той момент їй було всього 18 років.

Лише через один відіграний сезон, Кетлін стала частиною команди вже першого складу. Її дебютний матч відбувся 24 жовтня 2004 року, коли «Баварія» на виїзді обіграла «Вольфсбург» з рахунком 4:0.

У наступному ж сезоні Кетлін Крюгер відзначилася голом в «Бундеслізі» (перший футбольний дивізіон в Німеччині — прим. ред.), а в 2008 дівчина вирішила завершити професійну кар’єру футболістки:

Я докладала багато зусиль, але заробляла мало грошей. Тоді грою в футбол я могла заробити лише на кишенькові витрати. Поза ним ми вчилися або працювали.

Футбольна федерація Австралії зрівняла зарплати гравців жіночої та чоловічої збірних

Trans activists have criticised Kathleen Stock’s participation in Channel 4 documentary Gender Wars

LGBTQ+ activists have expressed fears about Channel 4’s Gender Wars, which the channel claims will attempt to find common ground between the trans community and their opponents.

Ahead of its broadcast, participants in the film have claimed they weren’t informed of Stock’s involvement and were “misled” and “misinformed” regarding the true nature of the film.

The angered participants claim they believed it had been agreed that the film would “fully include people’s views, experiences and thoughts on both sides”.

Instead, they claim the film will show trans and non-binary people and their allies taking part in lawful but noisy protest, with few trans and non-binary voices speaking and “only one given any substantial opportunity to speak”.

Gender Wars will air on Tuesday 30 May at 10pm on Channel 4 in the UK.

Life[]

Kathleen Zellner was born on 7 May 1949 in Midland, Texas, as the second-oldest of seven children. Her father is Owen Daniel Thomas, a geologist, and her mother Winifred Margaret Hall was a chemist who later became a nurse. Her siblings are psychologists and lawyers. In 1958 when Zellner was 9 nine years old she and her family moved to small-town Bartlesville in Oklahoma.

As a kid Zellner wanted to become an investigative journalist or work for the FBI. She was interested in crimes and analyzing plots, and she loves solving things and constructing arguments. She was also a fan of the Nancy Drew Mysteries television series, having watched all episodes. It was at the suggestion of her husband that Zellner began pursuing a career as a lawyer. Zellner described herself as a conservative Republican and says she is a supporter of the death penalty.

Her husband, Robert Zellner, is a commodities and bond trader with a doctorate in economics. They have a daughter named Anne, who is also a lawyer, in Nevada.

Zellner currently represents Melissa Calusinski, and Steven Avery, among others. She described the Avery case as «probably the most difficult case we’ve had», but thinks he will be free.

Who is smarter than who?

In response, more formally as part of an Art Biennial in 2017, Barbara Kruger launches an installation in a boutique gallery and skate park in New York City, displaying slogans like «who’s copying who?» — «who belongs to whom?» — «money talks» — «bully» — «whose values?» — «who’s above the law?» or «don’t be a jerk», declined on banners, t-shirts (from the brand Volcom) and skateboards, of course. People pay $5 to stand in line in front of what looks like a Supreme store, not knowing that they are ironically caught in the consumer trap.

Who is smarter than who? We have our own idea. I guess appropriation has its limits and consequences! Moral: don’t be a jerk !

Не розірвала зв’язок з мюнхенською «Баварією»

Разом з кінцем ігрової кар’єри прийшов і кінець навчання в сфері міжнародного менеджменту. Однак у цьому випадку Кетлін більше придбала, ніж втратила. У 2009 році спортивний директор «Баварії» Крістіан Нерлінгер запросив Кетлін, що пройшла всього три місяці стажування, на посаду асистентки в чоловічій команді.

Я завжди хотіла працювати в спортивному світі, але це було не зовсім реалістично: я знала, що робота в «Баварії» дуже приваблива і на одну вакансію незліченна безліч кандидатів. Тому можливість працювати в моєму виді спорту і в моєму клубі стала для мене немов виграшем у лотерею.

Після відходу Нерлінгера Кетлін офіційно стала менеджером «Баварії», підписавши безстроковий контракт. Ця посада принесла їй визнання преси та громадськості: багато хто став називати її босом команди. Зі свого невеликого офісу в спортивному містечку клубу, дівчина управляє всім, що пов’язано з організацією і процедурами. Крюгер щодня спілкується з гравцями, тренерським штабом, медичним персоналом, перекладачами і всіма, хто хоча б трохи пов’язаний з «Баварією». Саме від неї залежить життя цілого клубу, який працює як годинник. Кетлін знає все: режим харчування і тренувань, стежить за станом футбольних полів, підкована в медичній темі і завжди може допомогти в ситуації, якщо гравець отримує травму.

Supreme and Barbara Kruger: same style, different fight!

If reading this article makes you think that this style reminds you of something, you’re absolutely right: the Supreme brand. Or maybe you’ve recently read our analysis of the adopte un mec’s logo, also directly inspired by the latter?

In 1994 the founder of Supreme (James Jebbia) was looking for a new logo for his store and his skate and streetwear brand. A brand of men, for men. He lends a book on the work of Barbara Kruger to his graphic designer and the logo is born as if by magic. The Supreme logo is written in white letters, bold and oblique futura on a red background:

Same letters, but not the same fight. Kruger does not flinch, magnanimous. She doesn’t own the rights, and doesn’t want to get down to launching legal and financial battles. Especially since it is common among streetwear brands to reappropriate the codes of other brands. In 2000, Supreme tried to take over Louis Vuitton’s designs, before being called to order.

22 years later, world-famous brands such as Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Coca-Cola or even the artists Pollock, John Baldessari, Robert Longo and Damian Hirst collaborate hand in hand with Supreme by returning the levers of glory, and without rancor! A skateboard decorated by Damien Hirst bought for $700 and sold for $20,000 a few years later. Barbara Kruger knew how to use art to take sides and denounce injustice, unlike the Supreme brand which uses graphics and art for purely commercial purposes.

Where the artist Kruger criticized capitalism, consumerism and ambient machismo, Supreme (the coolest brand -according to the generation Y) bathes happily in it. Intended for men, the rare communication campaigns representing women are used to «censor» their private parts with the brand’s banner, thus inviting the male gaze to rest on this female body, once again a battlefield and a lever for sexist consumption. There is no second degree in Supreme: the woman is clearly prostituted in commercial object.

As we said in our article on adopte un mec, «a committed and popular approach often leads to its opposite, Supreme, by imitating Barbara Kruger, operates a technique well known in the world of capitalism (and advertising in general): the recovery. Brands appropriate a discourse from a minority -feminism, anti-consumerism- and inject it into their majority and macho system, which contributes to neutralize it, to phagocytize it, in order to better promote the initial system against which they were fighting.»

Sharpen your eyes

Barbara Kruger studied for two years at Parson’s School of Design in New York and began working as a graphic designer for Mademoiselle magazine, where she became art director after only one year, and for six years. She then went on to design for Aperture and House & Garden magazines. Barbara Kruger learns how to handle images in order to attract the eye thanks to the framing of the photos and the typographical games. She became a visual artist in 1970, but her first handmade productions did not satisfy her. Barbara Kruger stopped teaching for a few years, then started taking photographs.

In 1978 she published a book, Picture/Readings, in which her photos echo her texts, like snippets of conversations, moments of life. This publication set the tone for the works that followed, in which the text dialogues with the image, and which launched her reputation.

Who is Kathleen Stock?

Kathleen Stock is a British philosopher and writer who was a professor of philosophy at the University of Sussex until 2021. Prior to this, she taught at the University of Lancaster and the University of East Anglia.

Stock, who identifies as a lesbian, has two sons with her ex-husband, Gregor Beedie. She currently lives with her partner Laura Gibbon, a psychologist at University College London, with whom she shares another child.

On March 9, 2023, Stock helped to launch The Lesbian Project alongside writer Julie Bindel and tennis star Martina Navratilova, in reaction to trans inclusion efforts.

Не боїться бути сильною жінкою в команді сильних чоловіків

На питання про те, як бути жінкою, яка працює в команді чоловіків, Кетлін Крюгер відповідає з посмішкою:

У всіх нас тільки одна мета: бути професійними і успішними в тій справі, якою ми займаємося.

Більш того, дівчина підкреслює, що у жіночої комунікабельності є свої переваги. Наприклад, коли у футболістів немає бажання спілкуватися з пресою або відвідувати маркетингові заходи, вона «в жартівливій формі намагається переконати хлопців».

В інтерв’ю офіційному сайту «Бундесліги» вона зазначила, що є єдиною людиною в групі гравців в WhatsApp, в якому немає головного тренера. В основному туди надсилають розклад занять на кожен день і обговорюються внутрішні питання клубу. Однак там же учасники обмінюються жартами, смішними фотографіями і мемами. Не бояться гравці і по-дружньому «підколоти» менеджера.

Капітан «Баварії» Мануель Нойєр перед тим, як давати коментар виданню Sport Bild про Крюгер, в першу чергу запитав її дозволу. І тільки після промовив:

В якості менеджера команди Кетлін Крюгер працює цілодобово. На мій погляд, вона робить приголомшливу роботу і незамінна для нас.

А його одноклубник Томас Мюллер підкреслив, що менеджер — єдина людина, яка тримає команду разом. Вона здатна вирішити будь-яку проблему — від особистої до професійної.

Робочий день для Кетлін закінчується тільки тоді, коли футболісти добираються додому. Свої робочі години вона підганяє під розклад «хлопців» — так Крюгер ніжно називає гравців. Будь-хто з них може зв’язатися з нею навіть вночі, тому вона завжди напоготові.

Я йду на це свідомо. Я б ні в якому разі не стала скаржитися. Мені дуже подобається моя робота.

— каже Крюгер.

Students have opposed Stock’s appearance at the University of Oxford

On Tuesday (30 May) Kathleen Stock will give a talk at the University of Oxford 200-year-old debating society as part of its Trinity Term card.

Stock’s appearance at the Oxford Union has resulted in Oxford’s first-ever Trans+ Pride being launched by the university’s LGBTQ+ society to coincide with the date she will speak.

More than 100 Oxford academics have signed a letter supporting queer students in opposing Stock’s talk, while more than 40 of the university’s leading academics – including evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins – have signed an open letter in support of Stock’s appearance and “free speech”.

List of cases[]

A selection of cases Zellner has worked on over the years.

Represented	Conviction	Result	Reason	Notes
Larry Eyler1990 — 1994	Murder	n/a	Eyler died during representation.
Ronald Bullock1993 — 1994	Sexual assault1984	Overturned	DNA testing
Billy Wardell and Donald Reynolds1996 — 1997	Rape, assault1988	Overturned	DNA testing
Edwin Jones? — 1998	Murder	Denied	—
Wynne Superson1994? — 1999	Murder for hire	Loss	—	Superson admitted guilt in 1999.
Omar Saunders, Marcellius Bradford, Larry Ollins, and Calvin Ollins2000 — 2002	Kidnapping, rape, murder1987-1988	Overturned	DNA testing	Saunders, Bradford, Ollins and Ollins are also known as «The Roscetti 4».
Harold Hill and Dan Young2004 — 2005	Murder, rape1994	Overturned	DNA testing	Hill committed unarmed robbery after his release. Young died in 2006 after struck by a hit-and-run driver.
Kevin Fox2005	Murder, rape2004	Overturned	DNA testing
Michael Cardamone2005 — 2012	Murder2005	Denied	—	Cardamone pleaded guilty to battery, unlawful restraint and perjury in 2012.
Jerry Hobs? — 2010	Murder	Overturned	DNA testing
James Edwards2005 — 2012	Murder1991	Overturned	DNA testing	Zellner overturned one of three murder convictions. Edwards is still in prison for other crimes.
Alprentiss Nash2007 — 2012(?)	Armed robbery, murder1997	Overturned	DNA testing	Nash was murdered by gunfire in Chicago in July 2015.
Ryan Ferguson2009 — 2013	Murder2005	Overturned	Recanted witness statement
Christy Lentz? — 2015	Murder2010	Denied	—
Mario Casciaro2014 — 2015	Murder by intimidation2013	Overturned	Recanted witness statement
Melissa Calusinski? — ?	Murder	Denied? Pending?	—	unclear if Zellner still represents Calusinski
Steven Avery2016 — 2021	Murder2007	Denied	—
Daniel Holtzclaw2017 — 2019	Rape2014	n/a	—	Zellner withdrew from this case in December 2019 citing a busy schedule.