A new cultural center opens to honor the legacy of the Pop Arts nun in Los Angeles
There are a lot of art spaces in Los Angeles, but few people honor women. That’s what makes the newly opened Corita Arts Center in the downtown Arts District so special. The center is dedicated to artist, activist and art professor Corita Kent, sisters Mary Corita and, more cheesy, Pop Art Nun, which will enhance her legacy of artistic creation and social justice advocacy through exhibitions and public programs, art loans, art loans and archive preservation.
Kent was born in Frances Elizabeth Kent and named it in the name of Mary Corita, 18-year-old Mary Corita, before earning a bachelor’s degree from the Minor’s Heart School and then joining a university arts faculty member. While teaching, she received her master’s degree in art history from the University of Southern California and taught herself about printmaking. Her earliest works were religious in nature, but when pop music swept the art world, she began to borrow themes from advertising, secular music and literature, and as the 1960s grew, her output became more politicized. Prints from 1964 The most tomatoes, It is both a play of the Del Monte Tomatoes slogan and a call for the church to modernize the scene of virgin mothers.
Although her name doesn’t have the weight of contemporaries like Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein, Ken’s distinctive colorful prints were displayed in more than 230 exhibitions in the 1960s that combine popular culture with social and religious criticism. She was named the Women of the Year by the Los Angeles Times in 1966. She sent a splash in 1967 when Newsweek wore her on the cover of their magazine, wearing the headline “Nun: Modern”.
But, of course, she is more than just a nun. Kent was an important figure in American graphic art in his own time. She was also a fierce advocate, creating thousands of posters, murals and murals to support civil rights, feminism, and anti-war movements in the 1960s and 1970s. She is a rock star who is respected by her contemporaries for what she gives, and respects what she gives in her friend idols, such as Charles and Ray Emiss, Daniel Berligan, John Cage and Anna Nean.
Being smart, the Corita Art Center is not a new thing in itself, it was founded in 1997 on a small corridor on the campus of the Immortal Virgin High School. On International Women’s Day (March 8), it officially moved to a dedicated space in the 811 Traction Avenue Los Angeles Arts District.
See: Shana Hoehn
As we face a new era of uncertainty in art and politics, Corita Kent’s assertion that “the acts and actions are acts of hope” resonate with people. The Pop Arts nun died in 1986 after a long and prolific career, but her role model continues to move forward. In honor of the opening of the center, the center’s board of directors wrote in a statement: “Its new chapter invites everyone to participate in building a world of justice, creativity and possibility, in which hope is created through collective action.”
The opening exhibition of the center is “Heroes and Sheris.” This is the first time that the series is full of Los Angeles exhibitions: twenty prints produced from 1968 to 1969, honoring historical figures such as Martin Luther King Jr., Coretta Scott King, John F.
So, who is Corita Kent? Kent’s work is a pioneering figure in post-war American art, which bridges the world of pop art, social activism, and spiritual reflection. It’s too easy to think of her as a graphic designer – her work is built around typography, built with words and phrases in beautiful cursive scripts or blocky fonts, but Kent is an artist who uses words as a medium to interact with contemporary culture. Her work challenges artistic and social norms, and her influence goes far beyond the art world, which is an influence on civil rights, anti-war radicalism and feminist discourse. Her legacy continues to inspire artists, educators and activists around the world, and her prints can be found in collections of institutions such as Lacma, the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
exist hope (1965), we see the words of the poet Ned O’Gorman: “The secret is to take disaster, hope to win and describe the form of the incarnation.” Although Kent’s artwork was made more than half a century ago, it still makes sense in today’s America, for better or worse.
