Exhibition "Free: Contemporary Art After Frida Kahlo" ("Unbound: Contemporary Art After Frida Kahlo")

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Frida Kahlo is one of the first names that come to mind when it comes to women who changed the history of visual arts. The fearless surrealist has acquired an almost mythical status. At times, the striking story of her life even overshadows the glory of her paintings, although, of course, they cannot be separated.

Frida Kahlo was born in 1907. At the age of 6, she suffered polio, after the illness she remained lame for life, and her right leg became thinner than the left. At the age of eighteen, Frida was involved in a serious accident and suffered many serious injuries, including multiple fractures of the spine and pelvis. She was bedridden for a year, but health problems remained for life, an integral part of which was physical pain, dozens of surgeries, addictive pain relievers, unsuccessful attempts to become a mother, therapeutic abortions and several miscarriages.

Kahlo died in 1954, just a year after her first solo exhibition. And yet, despite all the pain, or rather thanks to it, she was able to create a series of self-portraits, in which the innermost truth is mixed with the most unimaginable fantasies.

In the picturesque world of Kahlo, home is a stone's throw from the wild jungle, humanity is easily mutated. One stroke of the brush - and everything changes beyond recognition. Frida the timid bride, Frida the wounded deer, Frida the bundle of tangled roots, Frida the child, Frida the queen … She wrote down her fears and dreams right in her own flesh, ripping off the veils and turning inside out.

More than half a century has passed, and contemporary art is radically different from the time of Kahlo in terms of genre diversity, ideas, subjects and techniques. What would this world look like if it weren't for Kahlo? Can not imagine. Her influence can be seen in the works of the most high-profile and outrageous contemporary artists who challenge the conventions of gender, race, politics, taste, art and life itself.

The exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art (MCA) Chicago focuses on Frida Kahlo's influence on the art world and includes the work of many contemporary artists for whom she has become a source of inspiration and role model. The exhibition is titled "Unbound: Contemporary Art After Frida Kahlo". Among the exhibits are the works of the idols of our time: Sanford Biggers, Louise Bourgeois, Beatriz Miliazes, Donald Moffett, Wongechi Mutu, Angel Otero and many others.