Press Release The Andy Warhol Museum Announces Someday is Now: The Art of Corita Kent, Opening January 2015

Someday is Now: The Art of Corita Kent

January 31 – April 19, 2015

The Andy Warhol Museum announces its latest exhibition, Someday is Now: The Art of Corita Kent, opening to the public January 31, 2015.

This exhibition is the first full-scale survey covering more than 30 years of work by the American artist Corita Kent (1918–1986). In her rich and varied career, she was a designer, teacher, feminist, and activist for civil rights and anti-war causes. Her thousands of posters, murals, and signature serigraphs reflect a combined passion for faith and politics. Kent became one of the most popular graphic artists of the 1960s and 1970s, and her images remain iconic symbols that address the larger questions and concerns of that turbulent time.

While several exhibitions have focused on Kent’s work from the 1960s, Someday is Now is the first major museum show to survey her entire career, including early abstractions and text pieces as well as the more lyrical works made in the 1970s and 1980s. The exhibition includes rarely shown photographs Kent used for teaching and documentary purposes, as well as hands-on art activities inspired by Kent’s teaching philosophy.

“So many artists have been inspired by Kent’s art, activism, and teaching philosophy, including several artist educators on staff at The Warhol,” says Tresa Varner, curator of education and interpretation at The Warhol. “Her message and belief in the power of art to transform is still relevant today, and it has inspired programming at the museum for years.”

A Sister of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Kent taught in the art department at Immaculate Heart College from 1946 through 1968, where she fostered a creative and collaborative arts community and developed a life-long interest in printmaking. At IHC, she developed her characteristic mixture of bold, bright imagery and provocative texts that she extracted from a range of cultural sources, including advertising slogans, grocery store signage, poetry, scripture, newspapers, magazines, philosophy, theological criticism, and song lyrics. Her inventive textual amalgams mix the secular and religious, popular culture and fine art, pain and hope, and include quotes from a range of literary and cultural figures, such as Samuel Beckett, Albert Camus, e. e. cummings, Langston Hughes, John Lennon, and Gertrude Stein.

For Kent, printmaking was a populist medium to communicate with the world around her, and her designs were widely disseminated through billboards, book jackets, illustrations, posters, gift cards, and T-shirts. Printmaking allowed Kent to produce a large quantity of original art for those who could not afford to purchase high-priced artworks.

Someday is Now: The Art of Corita Kent is curated by Ian Berry, Dayton Director of The Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery at Skidmore College, and Michael Duncan, independent curator and art critic, in collaboration with the Corita Art Center, Los Angeles. The exhibition is made possible with the generous support of The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and the Friends of the Tang Museum.

EXHIBITION RELATED PROGRAMS

Public Opening: Someday is Now: The Art of Corita Kent Friday, January 30, 2015
7–10 p.m.
Warhol entrance space and second floor

This free public exhibition opening features live music by DJ Huck Finn and a cash bar. The event is part of FREE GOOD FRIDAYS presented by UPMC Health Plan throughout the month of January, offering free museum admission Fridays from 5– 10 p.m.

Free

Youth Art Opening

Friday, February 13, 2015
5–10 p.m.
Teens from across Pittsburgh created a new series of prints in response to Someday is Now: The Art of Corita Kent. See these young artists interpret Kent’s practice and respond through their own lens. Guests have the opportunity to print designs created by these artists and take home original work.
Free with museum admission

In Discussion: Art & Social Change: Movement-Makers in the Arts with DeAnna Cummings, Jasiri X, and Dr. Joyce Bell
Saturday, March 21, 2015
2 p.m.

Warhol theater
Dr. Joyce Bell, assistant professor of sociology at The University of Pittsburgh, leads a conversation with DeAnna Cummings and Jasiri X around social justice, empowerment through the arts, and representation of youth of color in the media. Free with museum admission

Corita Kent in Her Contexts: Art, Craft, Politics, and Society

Saturday, April 18, 2015
2 p.m.
Warhol theater
Ori Soltes, professorial lecturer in theology and fine arts at Georgetown University, explores Corita Kent’s contributions to art history. Visual art has rarely been devoid of connections to religion and politics, and the hierarchy of visual artistic categories—architecture, sculpture, and painting; painting and photography; art and craft—has often offered blurred boundaries, particularly in the modern era. Kent often articulated those connections and helped identify that one form of self- expression is no more “art” than another.

Free with museum admission