Bread of life …
“Enriched bread” is a phrase culled from a wrapper for Wonder Bread, and at first glance this silkscreen seems of a piece with other pop art of the 1960s. Like the Warhol soup cans that inspired Kent, it replicates the bold graphics and catchy language of advertising.
Sister act …
What Sister Corita Kent, a Catholic nun and art teacher in Los Angeles, did with this language is a long way from Warhol’s fascination with surface. In her hands, a spiritual and political dimension was wrung from banal slogans.
Use your loaf …
The top note here is obviously the Eucharist. However, Kent adds biting social commentary. On the left is a quote from a Kentucky miner’s wife about the struggle to feed five kids. On the right, it’s Gandhi: “There are so many hungry people that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.”
In the balance …
The egalitarian gesture of offsetting these two voices – one an otherwise voiceless, poor woman, the other a historical great – is pointed.
Corita Kent: Get With the Action, Ditchling Museum of Art and Craft, to 14 October
