The Spirit of the Sixties
Art as an Agent for Change
Through April 11, 2015
The artists in this exhibition created work engaged with the political, social, and cultural climate that defined a turbulent period of American history in the 1960s and 1970s. Some of the work champions specific organizations, including Amnesty International and the Methodist Student Movement, which published Motive--a radical and influential arts-oriented magazine. Other artists took up particular causes, including the environment, civil rights for African-Americans and Native Americans, as well as peace at a time when the nation was immersed in the controversial Vietnam War. A few artists, including Pablo Picasso, Romare Bearden, and Ben Shahn, are best known for work they completed before the 1960s, but they continued making art or their art continued to resonate through the Civil Rights era. A final group of works in the exhibition draws the theme of art and social justice into the present day, reminding us that artists continue creating art that speaks truth to power and makes social injustice visible.This exhibition is curated by senior art history majors Kyle Anderson, Aleksa D'Orsi, Kimberly Drexler, Lindsay Kearney, Callie Marx, Gillian Pinkham, and Sebastian Zheng, under the direction of Elizabeth Lee.
Sister Mary Corita Kent
Be of Love, #4, 1963, silkscreen print
