Rachel's Frida Dress

Yesterday was the closing day of San Jose Museum of Art's Frida Kahlo exhibition. Unfortunately it was not well advertised as the central piece was by artist Rachel-Anne Palacios.

She re-created a larger-than-life version of the self-portrait Frida made for Trotsky. Exhibition attendees were then invited to create butterflies with messages for Frida or anyone they wanted to remember. These were pinned to the curtains, creating a cloud of beautiful colors. There are so many that each day the staff removed the old butterflies to make room for new ones. Rachel is going to save some and hopefully take them to Museo Frida Kahlo. The rest will be burned in a ceremony to commemorate Frida.

Frida Kahlo: Portraits of an Icon

Just five days before it closes I found out about the San Jose Museum of Art exhibition Frida Kahlo: Portraits of an Icon. Checking it out this weekend!

Saturday, October 11, 2008 through Sunday, March 22, 2009

Shedding light on the life and art of Frida Kahlo (1907 – 1954), this exhibition features approximately fifty photographic portraits of the legendary Mexican artist. Drawn from the collection of Spencer Throckmorton, a specialist in Latin American photography, the exhibition includes works by several of the most renowned photographers of the twentieth century: Manuel Alvarez Bravo and Nickolas Muray.

Image: Photo by Nickolas Muray Frida Kahlo on White Bench #30, 1938 Color Carbon Print Image: 14 ½ x 11 ½ inches © Nickolas Muray Photo Archive

Call for Submissions

Curator Rachel-Anne Placios has put out a call for entries for the July 13 - August 28, 2009 exhibition The Many Faces of Frida. The venue is a the arts collaboration of the City of Oakland, State of California Craft and Cultural Arts Gallery located in the State of California Office Building, 1515 Clay Street-Atrium in Oakland, CA.

Application available online.
Open to artists of all ages from the Bay area and beyond!
Submissions deadline: Friday, May 1, 2009

Re-Inspired!

This week I had the pleasure of meeting San Francisco Bay Area artist and curator Rachel-Anne Palacios who is all things Frida Kahlo. She has totally re-inspired me to post about Frida.

Visiting Frida Kahlo Exhibition at SFMOMA

Last night I got together a group of San Francisco friends and we went to see the Frida Kahlo show at SFMOMA. Thursday nights tickets are half price and the museum is open until 9pm. We made a fantastic evening of the exhibition followed by dinner at Maya a modern Mexican cuisine restaurant located a few blocks from the museum.

We were very lucky that my friend Thelma is a docent at SFMOMA and took us around the exhibition. If you can, try to get a docent tour. It makes all the difference. Thelma highlighted just a few images and used those to highlight the monumental events in Frida's life - her accident, marriage to Diego and miscarriages.

We started at the San Francisco wedding portrait Freida and Diego Rivera, 1931 and Thelma asked us to point out what we noticed about the image. The difference between the two figures was the most obvious - that one is large and monochromatic and the other, Frida, is small and brightly colored. We discussed her traditional clothing and the delicate placement of their hands. An interesting element that I hadn't noticed is that Diego is the one holding the paintbrushes and palette although Frida was the painting's artist.

Thelma took us to The Two Fridas, 1939 and we immediately noticed the similar clasp of the two Fridas' hands. In this image the Frida on the right holds a small portrait of Diego as a small boy. From it there is a vein that wraps around her arm, connects to a human heart, crosses over her shoulder and around the back and neck of the left Frida and to her broken heart and continues to this Frida's lap where she holds medical scissors that attempt to stop its slow bleeding. Thelma pointed out that this is one of the first known double self-portraits. It was painted when Frida and Diego were between marriages.

The final image we viewed was The Love Embrace of the Universe, the Earth (Mexico), Diego, Me and Senor Xolotl, 1949. In the center is a nude Diego being embraced by Frida who is embraced by the earth which is embraced by the universe. Frida is in a nurturing role but she cries and her heart bleeds. It is Mother Earth who is fertile. Diego, with his third eye has the wisdom as well as the source of fuel - fire, held in his embrace.

Although I have seen many of these images in Museo Frida Kahlo and Museo Dolores Olmedo in Xochimilco, Mexico City, there were some new images. Plus, to my delight and surprise the Portrait of Doctor Eloesser was there. He looked like there had been additional restoration work done on his face and hair beyond the work that the Museo Dolores Olmedo restores performed in 2005. There was no reason to be surprised to see him there considering that the image lives in the San Francisco General Hospital. Perhaps it was more the joy of seeing an old friend.

Fantastic additions to the exhibition included a small gallery of artifacts from Frida and Diego's stay in San Francisco including their marriage license. (So fantastic that I was married in the same city hall and have the same marriage license nearly 90 years later). Another gallery had dozens of never-before-seen original photos of Frida, Diego, their friends and family.

Although it was very crowded and our little docent tour kept picking up folks we had a fantastic and somewhat intimate view of the exhibition with Thelma's guidance. A real joy was a little girl who attended with her mom - both were dressed in traditional Mexican dresses and the girl had a hairpiece that made her look like Frida with braids and flowers in her hair. It was wonderful. Both gift shops offered many of these items and other Mexican crafts. It made me want to return to Mexico City and purchase thousands of paper flowers to fill my bedroom.

SFMOMA has an interactive online education site about Frida that you can access here.

This is a street banner in the Mission District for the exhibition.

Casa Bonampak

Now that I am again living in the San Francisco Bay Area there will be more posts of Frida in SF. Here is a fantastic little store I found in the Mission District, Casa Bonampak, a Fair Trade store located at 3331 24th Street between Mission and Valencia just half a block up from the 24th Street BART Station

Frida Kahlo Exhibition at SFMOMA opens June 14 2008

SFMOMA presents an exhibition simple titled Frida from June 14 - September 28, 2008.

Along with the exhibition are excellent educational programmes including: Learning from Frida Kahlo: Exploring Identity in Modern and Contemporary Art Julie Charles, associate curator, education, SFMOMA Alison Gass, assistant curator, painting and sculpture, SFMOMA Thursdays, July 17 - August 14, 20086:30 p.m. - 9:30 p.m.UC Berkeley Extension, 95 Third Street, San Francisco Taking Kahlo's work as its starting point, this course explores how other artists tackle themes of identity. Charles and Gass position Kahlo within a broader context of art history, using this expanded field as a means of defining the ways in which art reflects and constructs our understanding of ourselves, others, and the world we live in. Themes include the cult of the artist, artistic partnerships, the body, nationalism, portraiture, and Surrealism.

One semester unit of academic credit in art history. To enroll, call 510.642.4111 and reference course number EDP014985. More info here.

Good thing I'll be living back in San Francisco during the exhibition!