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Identification and Creation

Object Number
2008.186
People
Corita Kent (Sister Mary Corita), American (Fort Dodge, Iowa 1918 - 1986 Boston, Massachusetts)
Title
you shoot at yourself, america
Classification
Prints
Work Type
print
Date
1968
Culture
American
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/328980

Physical Descriptions

Technique
Screen print
Dimensions
58.42 x 88.9 cm (23 x 35 in.)
Inscriptions and Marks
  • Signed: l.r.: Corita
  • (not assigned): Printed text reads: You Shoot at Yourself, America
    Freedom to Kill The color of the Statue of Liberty grows ever more deathly pale as, loving freedom with bullets you shoot at yourself, America. You can kill yourself this way! It is dangerous to go out into this hellish world, but it is still more dangerous to hide in the bushes. There is a smell on earth of a universal Dallas, it is frightful to live and this fright is shameful. Who is going to believe hippocritical fairy tales, when, behind a facade of noble ideas the price of revolver lubricant rises and the price of human life falls? Murderers attend funerals dressing in mourning, and later become stockholders, and once again, ears of grain filled with bullets wave in the fields of Texas. The eyes of murderers peer out alike from under hats and caps, the steps of murderers are heard at all doorways, and a second of the Kennedys falls... America, save your children! The children of other countries turn gray, and their huts bombed in the night, burn in your fire, just like your Bill of Rights. You promised to be the conscience of the world, but, at the brink of bottomless shame, you are shooting not at King, but at your own conscience. You are bombing Vietnam and with this your own honor. When a nation is going dangerously insane, it cannot be cured of its troubles by hastily prescribed calm. Perhaps the only help is shame. History cannot be cleansed in a laundry. There are no such washing machines blood can never be washed away! O where is it hiding, the shame of the nation, as if it were a runaway Negro? The slaves are within the slaves. There are many unfettered murderers. They carry out their mob justice, pogroms, and Raskolnikov wanders through America, insane, with a bloody ax. Hey, Old Abe what are people doing, understanding vilely only one truth: that the greatness of a tree can be assessed only after it is felled. Lincoln basks in his marble chair, wounded. They are shooting at him again! What beasts. The stars in your flag, America, are like bullet holes. Arise from the dead, bullet-pierced Statue of Liberty, murdered so many times and speak out like a woman and mother and curse the freedom to kill. But without wiping the splashes of blood from your forehead you, Statue of Liberty, have raised up your green, drowned woman's face, appealing to the heavens against being trodden under foot. Yevgerny Yevtushenko
  • inscription: l.l., in graphite: 68-69-F

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line
Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Margaret Fisher Fund
Copyright
© Courtesy of the Corita Art Center, Immaculate Heart Community, Los Angeles / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Accession Year
2008
Object Number
2008.186
Division
Modern and Contemporary Art
Contact
am_moderncontemporary@harvard.edu
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Verification Level

This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of Modern and Contemporary Art at am_moderncontemporary@harvard.edu