Made between 19, the twenty-nine prints not only respond to pressing issues such as the Vietnam War, political assassinations, and the civil rights and labor movements, they also highlight Corita’s acute awareness of how these events were framed and disseminated through mass media. Produced during this formative period, the exhibition presents Corita’s heroes and sheroes series – the most explicitly political body of work she produced in her lifetime. Exhausted from this conflict and a frenetic schedule of exhibiting, teaching, and lecturing around the country, Corita sought dispensation from her vows and moved to Boston, Massachusetts at the age of 50. With this increased fame also came growing criticism from Cardinal MacIntyre, the conservative archdiocese of Los Angeles. By 1968, her art was enormously popular, showing in over 230 exhibitions and held in public and private collections around the world. During the 60s, her images would grow increasingly political, influenced by the decade’s transformative events. Often incorporating imagery from consumer packaging, popular media, and other everyday objects, her vibrant text-based compositions would become closely aligned with the Pop Art movement. Working primarily with serigraphy, or silkscreen printing, Corita wanted her work to “infiltrate the masses” and reach the largest audience possible. As a professor and later chair of the art department at Immaculate Heart College, she helped influence its reputation and recognizable style. Coming from a large Catholic family, Corita followed two older siblings into religious life, joining the order of the Immaculate Heart of Mary in Los Angeles shortly after completing high school. Corita carefully selected words and images to deliver accessible, earnest messages about love, hope, and peace.Ĭorita was born Frances Elizabeth Kent in Fort Dodge, Iowa and raised mainly in Los Angeles, California. Her use of bright colors and bold text was often combined with handwritten excerpts from religious works, philosophers, poets, and even pop music. during the turbulent mid-20th century, Corita’s body of work reflects concerns about poverty, racism, and war. RECEPTION: Friday, Nov 18th from 5-7pm / FNAR GalleryĬATALOGUE AVAILABLE / Free to School of Art studentsĬorita Kent (1918-1986) was known for her innovative production techniques, teaching methods, and messages of social justice. LECTURE: Thursday, Nov 17th at 5:30pm / Hillside Auditorium Marc Mitchell / Curator & Director of Exhibitions It’s these small moments of respite-a beer or smoke after a long shift-that remind us regardless of our socio-economic or political affiliation were more alike than different. Bollinger’s use of extreme highlights and shadows create a noir-like quality that helps to spotlight an undercurrent of despair that’s camouflaged by daily routines. Having been raised in a suburban neighborhood outside of Kansas City, Bollinger draws on familial history to help create allegories related to what’s happening around the country now. Often focusing on domestic environments or individuals at work, his figures become metaphors for larger swaths of American society. While trained as a painter, Bollinger’s studio practice is an interdisciplinary tour de force where narratives and characters seamlessly shift between media. Yet, Bollinger doesn’t try to make his work political rather, taking stance more attune to an anthropologist whose documenting with empathy. ![]() It’s easy to understand how the subjects got to this lonely place, especially with a global pandemic and a political system that operates in a zero-sum manner. People go about their daily lives-filling a lawnmower with gas, smoking a cigarette, looking at a convenience store window- but with a palpable fatigue that exists when one is trying to hold onto a world slipping away. ![]() The artwork that comprises Double Shift spans the past 5 years and share a collective malaise that can be felt throughout each object in the exhibition. ![]() It’s these individuals that often become the subjects of Matt Bollinger’s drawings, paintings, and animations. As we approach the midterm elections in 2022, we’re seeing an even more divided America one in which the working-class and middle-class find it more difficult to make ends meet amongst high inflation and while on the brink of a recession. Whether you agree with the policies or not, it’s undeniable that all Americans have witnessed the effects on Main Streets across the US. After all, it was Gingrich who introduced the divisive rhetoric, vicious tactics, and nationalistic platforms that have come to shape the American sociopolitical environment for the last 30 years. One could argue that Newt Gingrich, more than any other contemporary politician, has shifted the dynamics of US politics in the 21st-century.
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