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Self portrait with Bed (Me and my Doll) 1937
Singer songwriter Caron Geary
aka Feral aka MC Kinky
reviews the current exhibition of
Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera.
Dean Bright has been my close friend and collaborator for
decades, he makes the masks I wear on stage, so I was
particularly pleased when he invited me to spend the day out
with him in Chichester to see the Frida Kahlo masterpieces
from the Gelman collection at the Pallant House gallery.
Although I’m aware of her background and work, I hadn’t seen
her paintings before, nor had I been to Chichester. After a
relatively early night, post the designer Noki’s 40th birthday,
it was a premature 8.45am rise, devoid of hangover to catch
the 11am train from Victoria Station. Uncharacteristically I was
early. It was a great start to the day.
The journey to Chichester was an hour and thirty seven
minute ride thorough the gorgeous West Sussex countryside,
We crossed the generic small town high street, popped into
a charity shop, trolled down a series of early eighteenth
century walkways and arrived at the impressive modernist
gallery ten minutes later. I was keen to see the work of
the painter who said of the surrealists: “They are so damn
intellectual and rotten that I cant stand them anymore,
I’d rather sit on the fl oor in the market of Toluca and sell
tortillas, than have anything to do with those artistic bitches
in Paris”. I wonder who their modern day equivalent would
be? Several different international social groups outside of
Mexico have adopted Frida Kahlo, a self-confessed, “bitch”
FRIDA KAHLO AND DIEGO RIVERA
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Frida paints self portrait whilst
Diego watches by Bernard Silberstein
since her death in 1954. She has reigned supreme as the
moustached goddess of the 1970s’ feminists and is hailed
as a mono-browed style icon for the Gallagher brothers.
In reality the hirsute vision depicted in her austere self
portraits didn’t quite exist. Well it was nothing that a pot of
Jolen cream bleach couldn’t sort out today.
In this exhibition, Kahlo’s work is juxtaposed with that of her
husband, painter Diego Rivera and although most argue she
wasn’t as talented as her husband, since their deaths, she
is the better known of the two artists. She pre-empted this
decade’s “me generation” self-obsession and we can relate to
her self-referential work which is a practise that’s has been
adopted by many contemporary female artists and appeals
to a wide audience. Frida Kahlo said there had “been two
great accidents in my life. One was the trolley, (that crushed
her body) the other was Diego. Diego was by far the worst”.
They were a strange looking pair, him with his reptilian, toadlike
attributes and her with deformed feet and one leg thinner
than the other. Sometimes she “dragged up”, but often she
draped herself in traditional Tehuana costume. In twenty-fi rst
century fashion terms, think Bjork meets Fred Butler meets
Louise Gray, with a native twist.
Her mother disapproved of their marriage. Diego was
twenty years older and no looker, but despite their
turbulent relationship, littered with infi delities on both
sides, their divorce was followed by remarriage. Diego
didn’t seem to mind as much when the bisexual Frida had
affairs with women such as the fabulous Josephine Baker,
several other movie stars and the renowned artist Georgia
O’Keeffe. The couple had three-ways with his mistresses,
Self portrait as a Tehuana (Diego on my Mind)
1943
but Frida drew the line when Diego tried to keep it in
the family and had an affair with her own sister. After the
divorce, the artist cut her hair short and often dressed as a
man, suited and booted embracing her androgynous side.
In several paintings, we fi nd her in similar poses, fag in
hand her non-changing expressions and angles that were
often repeated, this was due to prolonged bouts of illness.
When fl at on her back laid up in bed she was given an
easel a mirror and brightly coloured paints: “I paint myself
because I am so often alone and because I am the subject
I know best”.
Kahlo retained her trademark indigenous style wherever
she went, it is this style brought about by her medical
condition and a nod to her indigenous roots that remains
with us today rather than individual works. The native hair
styles that wouldn’t be out of place in catwalk fashion
shows, the wide boldly coloured skirts seen in most of
her portraits, worn to disguise her misshapen frame and
the tribal jewellery are all part of her art. There are some
gorgeous colour photographs of Frida by Nickolas Muray in
the show where she appears to have been cut and pasted
from her Mexican environment and placed in different
background settings like New York, with her recognisable
fashion remaining intact revealing a smile and warmth not
seen in her own paintings. Mexican symbolism and cultural
references are evident in most of her work, she was proud
of her part-Indian ancestry. Dolls representing mortality, the
children she could never have and several miscarriages due
to her accident. These are recurring motifs as are animals
such birds and spider monkeys. She focuses on survival,
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Nickolas Muray
Frida, Blue Dress
nature, strength, alongside illness, fragility and the
pain she constantly suffered as a child with polio.
The work at times has a religious aspect; she appears saintly
as “Our Lady Hairy Mary” combined with Mexican deities.
Her intimate, memorable, relatively small-scale self-portraits
are not realistic. They are stylised, unsophisticated, brightly
coloured representations, but that’s their appeal.
Kahlo was in no doubt that Diego was the more superior
artist of the two, but this show is a not a competition,
it’s a concise look at some of their works, which don’t seem
really connected, despite their common ground. What does
come across is a shared love of their country and the love
Mexico’s odd couple had for each other.
On the train journey home we decided that Frida Kahlo was
probably not one to mess with. There was less a sense of
pathos and more the idea that in her youth when she was
well, up and about, hanging out in Europe and New York she
was probably genius company.
Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera:
Masterpieces from the Gelman Collection
9 July- 2 October 2011
Pallant House Gallery, Chichester