What Writer Issue

Sister Corita: Power Up

Source: The List (Issue 612)
Date: 4 September 2008
Written by: Neil Cooper

Anti-war art is largely a samizdat operation, in which the means of production are seized via cheaply-made DIY posters and pamphlets. In the 1960s especially, pop art was imbued with a political context often left out of more hedonistically-inclined hagiographies. So it was with Sister Corita Kent, a Los Angeles-based Roman Catholic nun, whose text-led silkscreen works became iconic images of anti-Vietnam war activity. The small exhibition of her work that is about to move into Dundee Contemporary Arts Print Gallery, then, is a perfect companion piece to the Altered States Of Paint show which has just closed in the main gallery.

'What she was doing was a precursor to punk and street art,' says Annis Fitzhugh, Print Studio director at DCA. 'The way she was using photography with her own texts, and the way she used screen-printing technology was pretty mind-blowing. She was a contemporary of Andy Warhol, and some people say she was more adventurous, but where he was a self-publicist, she was a woman with political aims, whose primary interest was in education. Her work wasn't just about aesthetics.'

This may explain why Sister Corita left the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary in 1968, relocating to Boston until her death in 1986.

'There's a whole movement of temporary art that she influenced,' says Fitzhugh. 'The show's called Power Up, and in that way her work was all about spreading the message.'

DCA Print Gallery, Dundee, Wed 17 Sep-Tue 4 Nov

More: Visual Art, Previews (Visual Art), Pop Art, Sister Corita Kent