On a day of weakness – one of many days of weakness in a life marked by pain, fear and loneliness – Frida Kahlo took the brush, dipped it in ocher watercolor and wrote in thick lines in her diary: “Diego principle. Diego Builder. Diego, my boy. Diego, my friend. Diego painter. Diego, my lover. Diego “my husband”. Diego, my friend. Diego, my mother. Diego, my father. Diego, my son. Diego = me. Diego universe. “Diversity in unity”. This passion, bordering on idolatry, that the Mexican painter felt for Diego Rivera, the man of her life and her downfall, is today the feeling that triggers a growing anger in Frida Kahlo. A cataract of variations from an iconic artist whose image sometimes detaches itself from what once was or seemed real.
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The novel. Claire Berest writes dryly. He is 41 years old. She is Parisian. One day – 20 years old, alone, in the United States, without friends, without English – she stood in front of a painting by Frida. He still remembers the almost physical impression of the woman on the screen speaking to him. The dialogue didn't stop.
Now she is publishing in Spain the novel Nada es negro (Irradiador Books), an exploration of the passionate story between Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera in seething Mexico in the 1930s. The first paragraph, which has more than 80,000 readers in France, says: “You just see him without even having to look at him.” From there, with a succession of images full of love and violence, the search for the truth begins in this tortuous relationship.
“Frida and Diego,” Berest tells EL PAÍS, “can neither live together nor apart.” They support each other, admire each other and humiliate each other. They merge and tear apart. They mix everything: desire, painting, politics. They experience their freedom.” Comrade Rivera dreams of a future in his Olympus as a revered, messianic artist who can say: “I don't believe in God, I believe in Picasso!” And at her side she: the big-headed hummingbird, with her Eyebrows and Indian skirts from Tehuantepec, always in the shadow of Diego Rivera, so cornered that she only had one exhibition in Mexico during her lifetime. For precisely this reason, Claire Berest reflects, “Frida would have laughed a lot at the current Fridamania; I would have said, “You’re crazy!”
Frida Kahlo dolls in store at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington DC. Jeff Greenberg (Universal Images Group via Getty)
It is important for the French writer that the power of her painting is still valid seventy years after her death. “The pain of the body, of love, of birth, of domestic violence, of abortion, of suicide. She is a painter who uses flat surfaces and bright colors to capture her reality, which is still our reality today.”
theatre. Matilde Sanquerin saw two Fridas. That's the name of the painting: The Two Fridas. One single, the other married. A double self-portrait with exposed hearts and dark clouds in the background in a dreamlike landscape. This painting and Kahlo's complex duality – two opposing and contradictory souls – are the catalyst for the play “Love and Revolution”, which will be performed at the Reims Theater in Florence this January.
The work is a journey through Frida's writings – letters, poems, diary entries and songs, but also the expressive language of Tehuana dresses and flowers in her hair – which revolves around her personal space: painting, pain, Diego Rivera, poetry , alcohol, Mexico, music, roots, death, doctors, stubbornness and – of course – love and revolution, the two axes of a short and turbulent life in which two actresses come onto the stage. The two Fridas. Your two souls.
Promotional image of the work “Love and Revolution”.
Matilde says Frida Kahlo is an icon for young girls today. A symbol of self-affirmation and feminist ideals. “However,” he emphasizes, “the role that the public ascribes to him does not apply.” Frida never spoke about feminism and did not put being a woman at the center of her artistic and political work. Today we are bombarded with Frida's face for commercial reasons. I hope it helps some people decide to find out who he really was.”
Fashion. Dior. There are four letters that don't sound like a revolution. This year the Parisian brand is launching a collection. It’s called “Dior Cruise 2024.” Designer Maria Grazia Chiuri says she was inspired by photographs in which Frida challenges conventional gender norms. “From the age of 19, Frida wore a masculine suit with a vest – a violation of her femininity, which claimed her independence, especially intellectual,” says the designer.
Frida Kahlo doll from Barbie's Inspiring Women Series collection. Kristy Sparow (Getty Images)
In her collection there are indigenous skirts, pre-Hispanic tunics, many butterflies – a symbol of transformation so present in Frida's paintings – flowers, parrots, monkeys and a pink dress inspired by a self-portrait of the artist. The Dior brand states that Frida Kahlo “transcended her body through clothing that became representation, proclamation, protest and affirmation.” The collection can be seen on their website. 3,000 euro bags. Sweaters embroidered with butterflies for 2,300 euros. A poncho made of wool and cashmere for 1,700 euros. 900 euro t-shirts.
The robot. Daniela Falini records everything. His altruistic website fridakahlo.it, based in Todi, a small medieval town in Italy's Umbria region, is a seismograph of the Fridian world. Four thousand people visit it every month. Daniela records everything. And perception confirms: There is a boom that borders on apotheosis. Exhibitions of his paintings, photo exhibitions, films, documentaries, plays, musicals, ballets, operas, literary works, illustrated books, music of various genres, murals painted in dozens of countries, clothing and merchandising of all kinds: from mugs to T-shirts. Shirts, from Barbie dolls to Lego toys, from Swatch watches to floral perfumes. The acronym FRIDA was also used to name a robot arm that uses artificial intelligence for painting: Framework and Robotics Initiative for Developing Arts. Cruel paradox.
Daniela Falini says that this boom is a reaction to the fact that Frida today “represents a reference for various human groups that still have rights of entitlement: the mestizos (the artist was German-Hungarian on her father's side, Indian-Spanish on her mother's side), the sick, Women, LGTBI+ people or the defenders of local traditions against the excessive power of global powers.” For all of them, merging with unibrow and mustache is a small part of their rebellion.
The catalog. Luis-Martín Lozano expresses a paradox on three levels. First, interest in Frida has exploded over the last fifty years. Second: The publications dealing with his biography, his Blue House, his cooking recipes or his clothing have multiplied. And third: Despite all this, Frida's paintings have been less analyzed; almost a pasture of oblivion or reduction to the usual ten paintings. The petrified subject.
For this reason, Luis-Martín Lozano – who ran the Museum of Modern Art in Mexico and studied the works of Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo in depth – sought to establish the canon. Everything works. Frida's 152 autograph paintings. All reproduced and commented on from a new historiographical perspective. The result is the book Frida Kahlo. It is published by Taschen. It weighs one kilo. It has almost five hundred pages. And from now on it is also available in a 25 euro version.
Pages from the book “Frida Kahlo”, published by Taschen.taschen
In the prologue, the editor highlights a milestone that explains the boom. Crucially, the North American feminist movement of the 1970s made Frida a “bulwark of freedom, the choice of the female condition, particularly in relation to sexuality, reproduction and equal opportunities for development” between women and men. This made her a worldwide symbol and object of veneration. Fridamania began there. “Today,” says Luis-Martín Lozano, “his work is integrated into a process that corresponds very well to our 21st century societies, which is dominated by individuality, by the consumption of the image, its replacement and immediate disposal, as well as by the practice of obsessed with predatory materialism.”
The origami. And what else? Especially these days the following: the premiere in Utah of a new documentary called Frida, in which filmmaker Carla Gutiérrez travels into the inner world of the artist. The graphic novel Que viva Frida (El Mono Libre), a book with text by Marie Córdoba, illustrated by Juan D'Atri, about Frida's construction of Frida. A pop musical in Manchester that focuses on his character. The announcement of a new immersive museum in Touloum (Mexico) that promises a visual and audio experience. A monologue in Havana entitled FK: Fantasy about Frida Kahlo from the Teatro de la Utopia. And an opera in Los Angeles about Frida and Diego's last dream, set on the Day of the Dead and with folk music playing in the background.
What else? An Al Jazeera podcast about Frida. A tribute to the Mexican painter at the National Gallery of Singapore with her self-portrait with monkeys. And the first book about Frida, written with the symbols of supportive alternative communication for people with disabilities.
Something else? Yes: the largest origami pop-up in the world with the image of Frida Kahlo. It will be exhibited in Milan this January and aims to break the world record set in Dubai: 8.20 square meters of paper on Frida. An origami assembly. With flowers, with butterflies, with a mustache and unibrow. She already wrote it: Diversity in Unity. Frida Variations.
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