Rome Meets Frida Kahlo

Lot-Art has visited the exhibition "Frida Kahlo. Il caos dentro" in Rome, Italy. Open from 12 October 2019 - 29 March 2020, this "sensory exhibition" presents a vision of the life and loves of Frida Kahlo through her vibrant letters, her candid photographs and the works seen through technology in an immersive and immersive perspective.

"Frida Kahlo. Il caos dentro" tells the story of a unique artist, walking through the places of her life: her home in Mexico City, her bedroom, her studio, the garden of Casa Azul. In the journey, the viewer acquires a deeper understanding of Frida's relationships with her husband, the artist Diego Rivera and through the shots of photographer Leo Matiz, it reads an intimate and personal story of the woman icon of contemporary art.

The viewer can follow thematic paths to fully immerse himself in the world of Frida and focus on areas dedicated to individual works. It is a new way to know the Mexican artist thanks to original contents regarding several themes, from Frida's relationship with the body to her relationship with politics to the value of a painting that goes far beyond the pop legend.

In addition to the artworks proposed in Modlight format, the Collection also presents hundreds of personal photographs, portraits, letters, diary pages, clothes and jewels inspired by the artist, for a 360-degree journey into the universe of Frida.

Left: Self-portrait in a Velvet Dress, 1926 (see full-size image »); Right: Self-portrait on the Borderline between Mexico and the United States, 1932 (see full-size image »)

Nowadays Frida Kahlo is a legend, maybe better known to the general public for being an icon than for her art. Even less known to the contemporary public is her husband, Diego Rivera. It is also worth mentioning that there are few chances to see the works produced by these extraordinary artists, as most of them belong to private collectors, and are part of traveling exhibitions held around the world. In line with current trends and playing with the development of multimedia technology, visitors can take a tour through the most intimate places where Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera not only created their globally renowned masterpieces, but also spent their lives, and which were settings for their love. A very interesting approach to the Mexican culture, a journey into the world of Frida, the most iconic painter of the 20th century. The exhibition gives visitors the chance to follow thematic paths and have access to the reconstructed rooms of the Casa Azul in Coyoacan, with a special focus on individual works of art.

"Frida Kahlo. Il caos dentro" photos by Lot-Art

"Frida Kahlo. Il caos dentro" photos by Lot-Art

HER WORK OF ART

"Piden Aeroplanos y les dan Alas de Petate" (They asked for airplanes, but were given straw wings)

Frida Kahlo was fascinated by the world of children. At the time, toys represented one of the major items of folk art; collectors were very impressed by the carved details and the sophisticated colour shades of dolls, wooden puppets, and ceramic animal figurines, all those in miniature format. The attraction for these tiny items may have helped Frida understand the extraordinary visual power to be potentially developed through small-scale art. Frida collected hundreds of ex-voto paintings, which were major sources of artistic inspiration for her. Ex-voto paintings are small votive pictures painted on tin plates through which the original owner expresses gratitude for a miracle received or an answered prayer. It is a painting attributed to Frida Kahlo (1938), inspired by the small scale original painting "Niña con Aeroplano" (Girl with airplane), oil on metal (just like votive paintings), which went lost; a black-and-white photograph by Lola Álvarez Bravo is all that remains. Frida described this painting in some letters. "One day, as a child, I wished a small scale model of airplane. For some kind of spell, I found myself wearing an angel costume (no doubt one of my mother's ideas... it is definitely more Catholic to turn an airplane into an angel.) I was dressed in a white robe (probably made by my mother as best as she could... I don't remember exactly), which was adorned with little golden stars. Large woven straw wings hung on the back... the same straw used in Mexico and in all poor countries to make toys and other useful items. What a happiness! I felt like I could finally fly!"

Left: "Piden Aeroplanos y les dan Alas de Petate", 1938 (see full-size image »); Right: Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird, 1940 (see full-size image »)

FRIDA AND HER DOUBLE

"Since my subjects have always been my sensations, my states of mind and the profound reactions that life has been producing in me, I have frequently objectified all this in figures of myself, which were the most sincere and real thing that I could do in order to express what I felt inside and outside of myself." - Frida Kahlo

The artist uses these words to explain why she has always had a preference for self-portraits in her rich artistic activity. Emotions and feelings have always been a source of inspiration for the development of Frida Kahlo's artistic process. She chooses self-portraits as a visual way to reveal her troubled inner world. At the exhibition, visitors can take a journey through Frida's emotional states of mind, as well as the different stages of her life, all this thanks to the backlit reproductions (Modlight®) of her masterpieces. Modlight® is a particular technique of uniform backlighting through which pre-digitized paintings are reproduced on a special film in their original size. This technique allows to fully appreciate all the main characteristics of the canvases painted by Frida throughout her life. Marks and signs, brush strokes and colour shades... Every single detail of her extraordinary works is reproduced with extreme accuracy. Stepping along a careful path, it will be possible to discover how the painter developed her personal style during years of intense artistic activity.

Left: Self Portrait With Bonito, 1941 (see full-size image »); Right: Self Portrait with Small Monkey, 1945 (see full-size image »)

Left: The Broken Column, 1944 (see full-size image »); Right: Self Portrait with Loose Hair, 1947 (see full-size image »)

Frida Kahlo - a strong and resolute woman, a myth for Mexico, and a global myth as well - has left much more than a memory behind her. Her art still reveals the essence of her soul. This is the reason why she keeps enjoying a great and unquestionable success. Not only did she prove an extraordinary talent through her art, but it also seems that her deep inner thoughts have remained trapped in her works. The exhibition, dedicated to the great queen of Mexican art, wants to celebrate the figure of Frida Kahlo both as a woman and as an artist

"Frida Kahlo. Il caos dentro" photos by Lot-Art

"Frida Kahlo. Il caos dentro" photos by Lot-Art

THE DREAM ROOM

Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo y Calderón died in this room on the night of July 13, 1954, with the official cause of death being pulmonary embolism. Inside the room, there was a four-poster bed, together with wooden furniture and Mexican crafts, including stone sculptures, and papier-mâché puppets. The room currently contains her death mask and a frog-shaped urn that holds her ashes. Between 1950 and 1951 Frida underwent seven spinal surgeries. "I was ill for a year", she wrote in her diary. Frida made her illness an opportunity: "I paint self-portraits because I am so often alone, as I am the subject I know best." Frida Kahlo once told Raquel Tibol, a famous art critic and a wedding friend of Rivera and Kahlo's: "Since I would have been lying down and wearing a plaster corset from the clavicle to the pelvis, my mother ingeniously made for me a very funny contrivance from which a wooden structure hung, serving as a support for my sheets. It was her idea to make a top for my bed in a Renaissance-style. She put a sort of canopy over my bed, and a mirror on the ceiling to let me watch myself and use my own image as a model." She said in another book: "In the end, each person is given back to himself. Just like in front of a mirror". The night before she died, seven days after her 47th birthday, Frida told Diego the following words: "I feel I will soon leave you."

"Frida Kahlo. Il caos dentro" photos by Lot-Art

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