Sister Corita, Marys Day, art performance, 1965, courtesy of Circle Culture Gallery, photo: Joshua White.
Aaron Rose is an artist, curator, writer and filmmaker. This Saturday, he will be in Berlin with his co-curator Sasha Carrera to introduce the exhibition Let the Sun Shine In. The exhibition shows the life and work of a highly unusual pop-artist, Sister Corita, who was a nun in the Catholic church until the late 1960s. Aside from curating the show, Aaron Rose has also made a film about this fascinating woman –who was inspired by anything from The Beatles to the Bible– called Become a Microscope. ARTPRESS caught up with Aaron Rose to talk about curating an exhibition around such an unusual person.
How will Sister Corita be represented at Circle Culture Gallery in order to illustrate the significant and topical role of her work?
We are producing a museum quality exhibition for Circle Culture Gallery. Displaying a selection of Sister Corita’s work that includes both popular works as well as more obscure and challenging offerings. The exhibition will be divided into seven parts, showing her silkscreen works from various periods as well as a film theatre in which rarely shown films on Sister Corita and her surrounding community will be shown. There will also be photographs and a special three-dimensional installation. Additionally, we will transform a part of the gallery into a workshop where visitors can experiment with Sister Corita’s techniques themselves.
Aaron Rose, Cults, 2013, courtesy of Circle Culture Gallery
Sister Corita passed away in 1986. Can the spirit of Corita’s work be revived?
A life can never be revived (except maybe through witchcraft), but we will be exhibiting photographs, videos and art projects that will help to get the viewers into the spirit of the magic that was happening in Sister Corita’s sphere while she was alive.
During the curator talk on Saturday the 22nd of February, we will go into the highs and lows of Corita’s life and work, her struggles against the church leadership and her collaborations with other creatives from the 1960’s.
Why did you select Berlin to display Sister Corita’s artwork?
Sister Corita always had a proletariat edge to her philosophy towards making and displaying art. Circle Culture Gallery embodies some of the same ideals. Berlin is a wonderful art city where people are not afraid to experiment. Corita was all about the experiment. She believed life is an experiment.
Sister Corita, Now!, silkscreen print, 1960s, courtesy of Circle Culture Gallery, photo: Joshua White
