Tate Modern’s latest exhibition, Frida: the Making of an Icon, features (only) 30 of Kahlo’s own oil paintings as well as works by her husband, Diego Rivera, and several of her Mexican contempories. The second part of the show is devoted to “Fridomania”, the commercial iconisation of her paintings and her image.
Twenty years ago Tate Modern staged a major retrospective that brought together 80 of Frida Kahlo’s approximately 200 oil paintings. By that time she was already widely recognised as one of Latin America’s most influential artists; however, since then, “Frida”–as she is affectionately known – has come to represent many different things to many different people. Frida has been embraced by social, feminist and LGBTQ+ movements, while simultaneously eliciting a quasi-religious devotion among artists.
“I do not like to influence others. I would not like to become famous. I have done nothing deserving of acknowledgement in my life.” Kahlo was already fairly well established as an artist when she told her friend Olga Campos that fame was most certainly not what she was after. Yet, the twenty-first century has seen her image reach a level of celebrity that has elevated her to iconic status. Increasingly, however, her admirers seem to obsess more over her persona, than her actual art.
Her distinctive features – her braided hair, her slight moustache and her signature unibrow– now decorate everything from tea mugs, egg cups, lipstick to tequila labels. Frida’s face has essentially become public property, the face of Mexico. It has become a free-for-all, with her likeness co-opted in the name of various social causes, political movemenst, or sheer commercial profit.
From a young age, Kahlo was deeply involved in political causes. She became a member of the Communist Party, had a brief affair with Leon Trotsky, and aligned herself with the ideals of the Mexican Revolution. It is hard to imagine that she would have approved of being turned unto a global trademark. Yet, that is exactly what the artist’s niece, Isolda Pinedo Kahlo, did when she obtained power of attorney over Kahlo’s property rights in 2003.
However, the U.S.–based Frida Kahlo Corporation (FKC) – formed in 2004 “with the goal of commercialising the Frida Kahlo brand”, – took Isolda and her daughter Cristina Teresa Pinedo to court in Florida accusing them of trademark infringement for setting up a competing website that sells goods that feature Kahlo’s image. The dispute dragged on and became worldwide news when Kahlo’s grandniece complained about FKC granting Mattel a license to produce a Frid -inspired Barbie doll with conventional, “beautified” features . Cristina Teresa Pinedo argued that Kahlo would not have been impressed with a doll that conceals her iconic unibrow. This bitter dispute over who owns the trademark remains unresolved and was revived on appeal earlier this year. The fight over the brand Kahlo is notably absent from the exhibition, perhaps to avoid conflict with some of the owners of the paintings and photographs that are on show at the Tate.
Self-portrait wearing a velvet dress (1926) is considered to her first significant oil painting. Frida gifted the painting to her boyfriend Alejandro Gómez Arias, who was threatening to leave her. Frida ensures she appears as attractive as possible, reminding her lover of what he might miss out on, should he leave. Dressed in an almost glowing, wine-red gown with her hair neatly parted, she shows off a long neck, a symmetrical face, deep black eyes, and long elegant fingers, Frida makes a covincing effort to look her best; her gaze is determined yet gentle. She gives herself the regal appearance of a Renaisasnce or Mannerist princess, an irresistible Botticelli or Patmigianino beauty.
The painting had the desired effect, at least for a while. She managed to win Alejandro back, until he left for Europethe following year. Though she wrote passionate letters to him, he he broke off the relationship shortly after his return to Mexico. Despite the breakup theyr remained lifelong friends.
There is a poignant prelude to this self-portrait, which explains Frida’s teenage obsession with Alejandro.
Frida was quite an exceptional student and was one of only 35 girls among 2,000 students that were admitted to Mexico’s leading sinstitute of secondary education. There she met Alejandro Gómez Arias who she fell passionately in love with. They both joined Las Cachucas, a rebllious student group named after the distinct caps they were wearing.
Frida had just turned 18 when she and Alejandro took a bus home from school. The bus collided with a tram. Several people were killed instantly and others died later of their injuries . Frida’s spinal column was broken, and her ribs and pelvis were crushed. Her withered leg – the result of contracting polio at the age of six – suffered eleven fractures. A handrail pierced through her abdomen and came out through her vagina. Alejandro, who was only slightly injured, found Frida naked and bloodied, and covered in powdered gold dust that another passenger had een carrying.
She survived, against all odds, largely with the help of Alejandro, but she was confined to her bed for three months, cocooned in a full-body plaster cast. For the rest of her life she would have to wear corsets to straighten her spine. Remarkably, it was duing this recuperation that she taught herself to paint. She learned exceptionally fast; a mere year after the accident, she was already producing paintings that were technically.more than proficient.
