Frida Kahlo: Making Herself Up
Curated by Claire Wilcox and Circe Henestrosa
The Victoria and Albert Museum, Cromwell Rd, Knightsbridge, SW7 2RL
16 JUNE - 4 NOVEMBER
£15.00 / £7.50 with National Art Pass
Frida Kahlo: Making Herself Up is the V&A’s exhibition documenting the life of an iconic woman, through personal artefacts and clothing. The materials included have been locked away for 50 years after her death, and this is the first time the items have been exhibited outside of Mexico.
The exhibition begins with a room dedicated to the background of Frida’s childhood, upbringing and life. We are enlightened to her rich heritage of a Hungarian-Jewish father and Spanish and Mexican Indian mother. This is the first mention also of the terrible bus accident she suffered at the tender age of 18. Further, we are introduced to her husband, famous painter Diego Rivera, who was 21 years her senior. The information contained within this early section is rich and vast, however, the room itself is incredibly narrow and small, and given how busy the exhibition was it was sometimes hard to worm your way in and read everything.
We then move onto images of Frida and Diageo’s home, ‘Casa Azul’ aka the Blue House. It is a beautiful building, decorated with interesting and original pieces collected mostly by Frida herself. This may be the first instance of the ‘making herself up’ that the exhibition is concerned with: the first expression of her vibrancy expressed within her colourful home. Following this we are introduced to her first portraits, namely that of The Two Frida’s, which unfortunately was not physically present within the exhibition, and was rather meagrely shown in a small black and white photograph underneath some explanatory text.
This wasn’t the first instance of this, as the exhibition continued to display some of her most famous works in this underwhelming and dull manner. The next room has quite a few of these black and white images, surrounding descriptive text around her ill health and lifetime struggles. In fact, this room contains very little of Frida’s work at all, and instead fills the centre of the room with large glass cabinets containing her personal items, including her famous corsets and prosthetic leg (which has a vibrant red boot attached to it). It is here that it becomes apparent that her works of artistic marvel take a backseat and are superseded by mere objects.
The best room was by far the last, which contained many more of her self-portraits, exposing the many personalities and guises of Frida. Two personal favourites of mine were Self Portrait with Monkeys and her last signed self-portrait, dedicated to her beloved doctor Juan Farill, which pictures her sitting in a wheelchair next to a portrait of the doctor. The centre of this room contained a cabinet with approximately 12 of her best loved and well-known outfits, made up of pieces from all over central, north and south America. However, this was potentially the only room where the concept of Frida ‘making herself up’ was present. It begs the question as to whether a display of personal possessions is the best way to document a personality, as I would argue that her work is a much more apt representation of character than either her prosthetic leg or old corsets, and I think she would be inclined to agree with me.
The exhibition was small, and we were finished in around 40 minutes. It was informative and didn’t give an overload of information which was refreshing, especially for a biographical show which could have gone on forever, however, as mentioned previously, it was very busy, so you couldn’t move around easily. My advice would be to wait until Autumn, when the hype over the show has calmed down and is less popular, and you are likely to have a much more enjoyable experience. Her work is undeniably amazing and the collection of her clothing and self-portraits very impressive, but it was a shame that there was a distinctive lack of some originals, especially when these were replaced with small black and white replicas simply printed underneath explanatory text. The overall content also begs the question whether this exhibition has the intimacy it so suggests: it seems to me as more of a window into artists wardrobe than window into her soul.
OVERALL RATING: ***
https://www.vam.ac.uk/exhibitions/frida-kahlo-making-her-self-up
