Print
If you drew a Venn diagram that brought together Charles Eames, Pop Art, commercial printing, social justice movements, the Second Vatican Council and 1960s Los Angeles, only one person could inhabit the space where those areas intersect: Corita Kent. A nun in the order of the Immaculate Heart of Mary for more than three decades, Sister Mary Corita was a well-known educator and artist dubbed the “Pop Art nun” by the press. A key mentor was Eames; she went on to mentor Sister Karen Boccalero, who founded the Chicano art center Self Help Graphics & Art in East L.A.
Historic sites for women are rare, but Kent's printmaking sat at the nexus of art, activism and politics. Her work and message couldn't be more timely.
Free Essay: The Pasadena Museum of California Art has a beautiful exterior with an open-air staircase with moody light play from an oculus above its entrance.
March 8, 2021
The Department of Fine Arts presents an artist talk with Los Angeles-based artist Kori Newkirk, supported by the Forst Endowed Visiting Artist Program.
Kori Newkirk creates mixed media artworks often inspired from cast-off objects found in his local environs of downtown Los Angeles. By using unpredictable materials such as pony beads, pomade and hair extensions, Newkirk astounds us by articulating complex ideas about our cultural memory. Newkirk’s provocative works, inflected and informed by his African-American heritage, poignantly remind us of our racist inhumanity. Newkirk continually reinvents his practice, rethinking cultural notions of beauty, exploring issues of narcissism, celebrity and spectacle in the political arena, and taking his practice into new unexpected directions.