- Title: MEXICO: Largest ever Frida Kahlo exhibition displayed in Mexico City
- Date: 15th June 2007
- Summary: EXHIBITION CURATOR, JUAN RAFAEL CORONEL RIVERA BEING INTERVIEWED (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) EXHIBITION CURATOR, JOSE RAFAEL CORONEL RIVERA, SAYING: "I have always said that Frida and Diego are like our first couple, our very own Adam and Eve. That is where our culture starts - before that, our culture was a bit ambiguous."
- Embargoed: 30th June 2007 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: Mexico
- Country: Mexico
- Reuters ID: LVA1GNRVF1X8H5MRB6KM2MP0XMUI
- Story Text: Mexico City hosts the largest ever exhibition of Frida Kahlo's work to mark the artist's 100th birthday. To celebrate renowned Mexican artist Frida Kahlo's 100th birthday, the Museum of Bellas Artes in Mexico City is showing the largest exhibition ever of her work. Over 300,000 people are expected to attend the show, which will be open to the public starting Wednesday (June 13).
Some 350 pieces will go on display, including some on loan from collections in the United States and Japan, as well as 50 of Kahlo's personal letters and 100 photographs. These letters were recently discovered hidden away in Frida's home, La Casa Azul (The Blue House).
The exhibition intends to depict who Frida really was.
Kahlo began painting as a teenager while convalescing from a horrific tram crash in 1925 in which she broke her back in three places and fractured other bones.
The accident and a legacy of childhood polio meant she spent her life in constant physical pain, and was unable to have children.
That suffering is often depicted in her work, which dwells on themes of pain and female disfigurement.
Frida was twice married to Mexican muralist Diego Rivera who was nearly 20 years her senior. She was greatly influenced by Diego Rivera. They became a dominant couple and are representative of Mexican Art in the 20th century.
"I have always said that Frida and Diego are like our first couple, our very own Adam and Eve. That is where our culture starts - before that, our culture was a bit ambiguous," said exhibition curator Jose Rafael Coronel Rivera.
Kahlo died on July 1954 after suffering a bout of pneumonia. Rivera died in 1957.
Her feminism, lifestyle and Communist political beliefs have become inseparable from her art.
Roxana Velasquez, the Bellas Artes Museum Director, said that Frida was an artist who knew that she was different.
"The intimate Frida, the intimacy of her family, Frida's childhood, her surroundings illustrated in her photographs, as well as her character and as a model. She knows that she's attractive, she dresses to be portrayed. She knows that she's different," she said.
Many museum visitors look forward to the exhibition, which is scheduled to run until August.
Frida Kahlo painted 120 oil paintings during her 47 years.
Her fame extended throughout the world after the 2002 Oscar-winning film titled Frida starring Salma Hayek. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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