Corita Kent’s photographs will be featured as part of a new exhibit for the Marciano Art Foundation. (photo courtesy of Corita Slide Collection, Corita Art Center)

Marciano Art Foundation announced the fall 2025 exhibitions, “Corita Kent: The Sorcery of Images,” opening Sept. 26, and “JOHN GIORNO: NO NOSTALGIA,” opening Oct. 25.

Corita Kent (1918-1986) was an artist, teacher and activist who uniquely combined her passions for faith and politics in an exuberant and joyfully creative practice. As a Catholic nun in Los Angeles’s Immaculate Heart of Mary order and an influential art teacher at Immaculate Heart College from 1947 to 1968, Corita (as she was known) gained international recognition for her signature serigraphs (silkscreen prints) that innovatively brought together elements of popular culture with messages of love, faith and politics.

“Corita Kent: The Sorcery of Images” focuses on a little seen part of Corita’s artistic practice: her archive of over fifteen thousand 35mm slides that she and her cohorts took between 1955 and 1968 while she was a beloved teacher in the art department at Immaculate Heart College. Collecting fragments of the world with her camera for reuse at a later date, her eye documented the contemporary Los Angeles urban landscape.

Marciano Art Foundation will also host Corita Art Center’s annual Corita Day on Nov. 22.

“Corita Kent: The Sorcery of Images” is curated by MAF Director Hanneke Skerath and independent writer and curator Douglas Fogle for Marciano Art Foundation, in collaboration with Corita Art Center.

MAF is thrilled to reopen the second floor Window Gallery on Oct. 25 with an exhibition devoted to the late poet, artist and activist John Giorno (1936-2019). Known for taking poetry beyond the printed page into the realms of performance, sound installation and painting, Giorno stated that he was “determined to make poetry a razor blade cutting through the ego of America’s karma.” MAF’s exhibition will bring together a select group of Giorno’s work ranging from early prints to his black-and-white text and rainbow paintings. Also on view will be a selection of materials from Giorno’s archive showing how he pieced together his poems, while demonstrating the public and private friendships that made him a force and an essential voice in the New York art scene since the 1960s. Giorno’s acclaimed work “DIAL-A-POEM” (first launched in 1969) will also be featured. Visitors will have on-demand, 24-hour access to over 250 recordings of poems read by 132 poets, artists, musicians and activists – all at one’s fingertips and the dial of a phone number.

“JOHN GIORNO: NO NOSTALGIA” is curated by MAF Director Hanneke Skerath and writer and critic Carlos Valladares for Marciano Art Foundation in collaboration with Giorno Poetry Systems.

A slate of associated programs tied to both exhibitions will be announced later, and tickets for “Corita Kent: The Sorcery of Images” are available now.

The Marciano Art Foundation is located at 4357 Wilshire Blvd. For tickets and information, visit marcianoartfoundation.org.