present
Documentary on Art
The Life and Times of Frida Kahlo
The Life and Times of Frida Kahlo
A documentary film by Amy Stechler
Runtime : 90 minutes
28th April 2010; 5.30pm
Contemplate Art Galley
Runtime : 90 minutes
28th April 2010; 5.30pm
Contemplate Art Galley
An understanding of Frida Kahlo, the person as well as the paintings,
requires a setting aside of conventional thoughts and dates, as the
case may be. At the same time, paradoxically enough, it requires the
context of history. She was a revolutionary artist born amidst political
chaos in her homeland; born in the year of its own bloody rebirth, give
or take a couple years. That image, according to the artist, is more
truthful than fact itself. It would be quibbling to disagree.
No matter whether she was in Paris, New York or Coyoacn, she clothed
herself elaborately in the Tehuana costumes of Indian maidens. As much
as Frida's country defined her, so, too, did her husband, the celebrated
muralist, Diego Rivera. If Mexico was her parent, then Rivera 20 years
her senior was her "big-child." She often referred to him as her baby.
She met him while still a schoolgirl and later, in 1929, became the
third wife of a man who gaily accepted the diagnosis of his doctor that
he was "unfit for monogamy."
Although Frida's work, often fantastic and sometimes gory, has been
described as surrealism, she once wrote that she never knew she was a
surrealist "until Andr Breton came to Mexico and told me I was one."
("The art of Frida Kahlo is a ribbon about a bomb," Breton wrote,
admiringly.) However, Frida eschewed labels. Diego argued that Frida was
a realist. Her principal biographer, Hayden Herrera, seems to agree,
writing that even in her most enigmatic and complex painting, "What the
Water Gave Me," Frida is "down to earth," having depicted "real images
in the most literal, straightforward way."
Like much of Mexican art,
Frida's paintings "interweave fact and fantasy as if the two were
inseparable and equally real," Herrera adds."Really I do not know
whether my paintings are surrealist or not, but I do know that they are
the frankest expression of myself," Frida once wrote."
When Frida Kahlo died at the age of 47 on July 13, 1954, she left
paintings, each of which corresponds to her evolving persona, as well as
a collection of effusive letters to lovers and friends, and colorfully
candid journal entries.
