Corita Kent was L.A.’s own pop art star. Back in the 1960s, when she was still a nun and known as Sister Mary Corita, she was named one of L.A. Times’ women of the year and landed on the cover of Newsweek. While she was creating serigraphs with social justice messages, she also taught at Immaculate Heart College and became head of the school’s renowned art department. Kent continued making art long after she left her religious order and moved to Boston. In fact, her best known work was the massively popular U.S. postal stamp that read “Love,” which was released in 1985, one year before her death.
Last week, on International Women’s Day, a new home for Kent’s legacy opened in the Arts District. A few days prior to that, I headed to the new Corita Art Center for a press preview. During my visit, and in the days that followed, I kept thinking about one specific piece. It’s called e eye love, which is part of a series called circus alphabet. In it, an eye is superimposed on a capital letter E. Underneath it is a snippet of a quote from the philosopher and writer Albert Camus, “should like to be able to love my country and still love justice.” Kent made this piece in 1968, a tumultuous year in U.S. history. More than 55 years later, I’m looking at it in a gallery-like setting thinking, “Same.”
I have written about Kent’s work previously, first for Discover Los Angeles, when her collection was housed at Immaculate Heart High School, and, later, for Los Angeles Magazine when Corita Art Center led a campaign to have her former studio designated a Historic-Cultural Monument. So, I’m familiar with her work, but visiting the new headquarters was an altogether different experience because it’s a larger space dedicated to Kent’s life and art. There’s a lot on view inside the center, including a letter from L.A.’s archbishop criticizing her work and the exhibition Heroes and Sheroes. It’s all incredibly interesting. But, it’s e eye love that kept popping back into my head every time I tried to write about my trip to the center, maybe because I can’t read the news without grumbling, “this country is so embarrassing.” I too would like to love my country *and* justice, but it doesn’t seem like those things are compatible right now.
Aside from previously writing about Kent, I have a personal interest in her work. Partially, that’s because I love pop art. But, it’s also because I spent 12 years in Catholic school (not fun) and four years at a Jesuit university (super fun) and my big takeaway from that experience was the social justice angle. Today, I fall into the category of lapsed cafeteria Catholic, but I think I’m still influenced by all those lessons in school about helping our communities and sharing what we have with others.
Corita Kent embodied that spirit of sharing in a way that’s probably more relevant now than ever. Her gift was art and she used it to make statements in support of human rights, whether her pieces were reflecting upon the civil rights movement, the Vietnam war and the opposition to it or the farmworker movement. She also did this in a way that was easily understood by a wide audience in her time. Kent appropriated corporate branding, newspaper and magazine clips, pop song lyrics and literature in her work. She also focused on silk-screening, which she taught herself to do with a DIY kit, and printed pieces in unnumbered series, all of which allowed her art to be fairly accessible. Her artistic choices were certainly a precursor to zines and, arguably, memes too.
Right now, there’s an exhibition on view at Corita Art Center called Heroes and Sheroes,which includes 29 pieces that Kent made between 1968 and 1969, around the time she went on sabbatical and, ultimately, left the Immaculate Heart of Mary order. The serigraphs are both documentarian in nature and very political, with Kent composing images that comment on events like the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, as well as the work of Cesar Chavez and the antiwar movement. Heroes and Sheroes is very of-its-time— I had to look up some of the references when I first heard about these pieces— but the message remains powerful and inspiring, likely, for anyone who feels like they’re at a loss for words when it comes to today’s headlines.
If you want to check out Corita Art Center for yourself, it’s open on Saturdays and is located at 811 Traction Ave., Suite 3A, Los Angeles 90013. It’s in the Arts District and is a short walk from the A/E Line Metro station in Little Tokyo. There’s no entrance fee, but you do need to make reservations, as the space is fairly small. Head to corita.org for more information and to reserve a date and time for your visit.
Liz O. is an L.A.-based writer and DJ. Read her recently published work and check out her upcoming gigs or listen to the latest Beatique Mix. Follow on Instagram or Bluesky for more updates.
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