Luisafantinel · CC BY-SA 4.0

Barbara Kruger built a visual language out of advertising's own tools: black-and-white photographs overlaid with blunt captions in white-on-red Futura Bold Oblique or Helvetica Ultra Condensed, addressing power, identity, consumerism and sexuality through pointed use of pronouns like "you" and "we." A central figure of the Pictures Generation, she has worked across photography, sculpture, video and architecture, and taught for decades as a professor of new genres at UCLA. Time named her one of its 100 most influential people in 2021.