"She loves men and she loves women. Loves to smoke, but also good wine. She could have an affair with Trotsky, a Soviet political prisoner sheltered by her husband, under the eaves; she could also twist her body gracefully in the tavern with dance music and have a spring supper with men she didn't know; she could catch up with the hot dancers on the stage and sleep together. ”
She was the first Mexican painter to be collected by the Louvre, and Madonna bought her painting "Birth" at great expense and claimed to use it as a "touchstone" for judging others. Her self-portraits are unique, often printed and dyed on various objects to promote a unique personality, and even Picasso lamented that he could not make such paintings.
She was Frida Kahlo, the most legendary Mexican female painter of the twentieth century, with a rough and enthusiastic life.
丨 Frida Caro
Born in Mexico City in 1907 to a photographer of Jewish descent and a mother of Spanish and American Indian descent, Frida Jr. was a true mixed-race beauty. Unfortunately, at the age of 6, Frida developed polio, which led to lameness, but for Frida, this was only the beginning of a sickness.
丨 One on the left, a family photo of Frida when she was 17 years old
At the age of 18, just as Frida's beautiful body began to exude seductive charm, a terrible car accident cast a painful shadow on her life.
She loves to read philosophy, likes to discuss politics with her boyfriend on the tram, is fierce and bold, and never gives in. However, one day when she came home from school, just as she was arguing with her boyfriend, a terrible car accident struck, and fate interrupted her brilliant youth and forcibly destroyed her beautiful carcass. Frida's spine was broken into three segments, her right foot was severely fractured, while her left foot was completely crushed, the metal penetrated her young body, the uterus was penetrated, and she lost her fertility permanently.
丨 Frida, Henry Ford Hospital, 1932
When Frida woke up from her coma, her whole body was wrapped in a clumsy plaster cast, and she could not move, hoping that her boyfriend would come to see her. The boyfriend came, brought her favorite philosophy books and delicate flowers, hugged her and kissed her bitterly, but finally told her that she was going to school in Europe and would not come back...
Frida, who suffered a physical injury and then suffered a lovelorn, in order to relieve her suffering, she began to paint while cooperating with the doctor's treatment, and the family spent all her savings in order to treat her, and she hoped that she would one day be able to walk again and rely on herself. Her enlightened father encouraged Frida to paint and bought her a complete range of painting materials. Frida just lay on the bed like that, put a mirror on the roof, she looked at herself in the mirror, and began to draw herself...
Finally, she regained her mobility. She limped to the place where Diego River, one of the three masters of Mexican murals, worked with her paintings, hoping to get Rivera's professional review of her paintings. Her weak body shouted to Rivera, who was painting, "Diego, come down." "This is the beginning of Frida's life after trauma, and the beginning of the tribulations that have plagued her all her life.
Rivera recognized Frida's talent and encouraged her to continue painting and personally instructed her. They are all outstanding, with the same political views, Frida is romantic by nature, despite the physical damage is still wonderful and seductive, she and the graceful female photographer dancing the riot tango, breathless, full of snake scorpions. Rivera was fascinated by her...
丨 Frida with her husband Rivera
Soon, the wonderful Frida and the frescoed home Vera fell in love, moaning and moaning on the bed, and they were best friends and most affectionate lovers. Despite her family's disagreement, Frida agreed to Rivera's marriage proposal, hoping to have a husband to take care of her.
Rivera, who had two wives, was 21 years older than Frida, tall and fat, and in stark contrast to the young petite Frida, so some called their union a "elephant and a pigeon" marriage.
Rivera was not honest at all after marriage, he was very open to sex, thought sleeping with women was as natural as peeing, and he was never loyal to Frida after dealing with naked models often. When Frida angrily questioned him, he simply explained: "Having sex with a woman is like shaking hands with people, it is very common, at best, it is a stronger handshake." ”
In such a marriage vortex, Frida's heart was painful, the pain burned her, and she released a fierier flame. She loves men and she loves women. Loves to smoke, but also good wine. She could have an affair with Trotsky, a Soviet political prisoner sheltered by her husband, under the eaves; she could also twist her body gracefully in the tavern with dance music and have a spring supper with men she didn't know; she could catch up with the hot dancers on the stage and sleep together. She relied on the pain of wine and sexual anesthesia and her broken body, indulging and destroying at the same time.
Until she found out that her husband and sister were secretly having an affair, she finally couldn't bear it and separated from Rivera. One was her beloved husband and the other was her dearest sister, which she could not accept. Watching her sister go away that night, she sat down in a chaotic room and strangled her long hair with scissors.
She drew "A Few Taps Quietly," which comes from a real news event in which a man stabbed his wife more than two dozen times, and when asked about him, he said, "It's just a few gentle pinches." It can also be seen how much Frida has been hurt inside, and the car accident may not be more painful than this, she once said: "I have experienced two unexpected fatal blows in my life, one was a car accident, and the other was Diego." ”
丨 Frida, "A Few Pinches A Little Less," 1935
Later, Frida divorced Rivera, and they continued to live their own lives of debauchery. Still, Frida thought of Rivera, whose relationship, though painful for each other, was indisputable, and in a letter to Rivera she said, "I love you more than I love myself." ”
Soon, Rivera proposed to Frida again, at which point Frida's condition deteriorated so badly that she was forced to lose her toes and tied dozens of kilograms of orthoses. Faced with Rivera's marriage proposal, she said: "I don't need the sympathy of others. Rivera replied, "I need to." ”
They lived together again, except that Frida was completely bound to the bed by the pain, she had had amputations, her whole body was in pain, and she needed morphine to alleviate the pain, but she was still tenaciously painting to resist the pain and spend time in bed until her death.
Frida painted a large number of self-portraits during her lifetime, and Rivera commented on her paintings:
"Hard as steel, fragile as butterfly wings, rejoicing as wine, sorrow as suffering."
She uses color to convey the unbearable pain in her life, and uses images to express her desire for the happiness that will be lost forever in life. When someone says she is a surrealist painter, she argues: "What I paint is never a dream, it is my reality." ”
丨 Frida, Self-Portrait with a Necklace of Thorns and a Hummingbird, 1940
丨 Frida, Broken Spine, 1944
But any amazing painter must have his own transcendent differences, what is the difference between Frida and Frida? I guess that's not clear. Frida's paintings contain both unbridled nature and sickness and pain; they render the warm and colorful colors of the South American land and hover in the cold and desperate haze on the operating table... Numerous factors make up the intense colors of Frida's paintings that make it impossible to restrain your thoughts.
丨 Frida, Marxism Will Give Health to the Sick, 1954
丨 Frida, Self-Portrait Before Stalin, 1954
Frida has many colors, she is fragile and determined, sensitive and exuberant. Her battered soul had the most broken body, but it had never been destroyed by its brokenness; her slender and weak body had gone through inhuman suffering and had never died of suffering.
She is a brilliant rose on the mexican land, deeply dissecting herself with a paintbrush; she wanders the world with her body, venting her attachment to the flesh and life.
丨 Frida, Long Live Freedom, 1954
She wrote on her deathbed: "I hope it is fortunate to leave, but I hope that I will never return." "While longing to leave, he also painted the painting "Long Live Freedom" that yearns for life. Hating fate but loving life, Frida walked between these two thoughts, but unexpectedly lived to the extreme.
If so, how we will fall in love with Frida, in the face of so many Frida crafts, it is fascinating and impressive. Art Wild Madness especially recommends a beautiful album about Frida:
"In Love with Frida"
Shanghai People's Fine Arts Publishing
Hexi Press:
The book I translated, "Falling in Love with Frida," was just published by the Shanghai People's Fine Arts Publishing House.
The 258 Frida collections were first exposed, and the 12-page oversized hardcover book is a very beautiful book.
This book presents readers with a new perspective on the folk art of Frida from all over the world, including crafts, graphic design works, souvenirs, etc., and hopes that readers will be able to enter the complex and multifaceted world of Frida Carlo with great interest. The book In Love with Frida is enlightening, but not all-encompassing. The author also attempts to make logical arguments: partly focusing on exploring frida's myth and how she was glorified. Some of these myths are rooted in her particular pain, while others can be traced back to her skilful self-expression. Clarify this broad subject by quoting, reproducing, or creatively reinterpreting Frida's work, and hopefully these associative links open up a broad lineage of meaning that can be associated with Frida. The following is the preface to the book In Love with Frida.
In Frida's Footsteps: Frida's Incarnation
By Gobby Frogger
Translated by Hexi
You are now reading another book about Frida, but this book does not even include one of Frida's originals. Yes, it's just people around the world who meet her: curious, touched, or just funny. It's a special kind of encounter, and although they vary widely, they all focus on one particular theme: countless crafts, images and souvenirs that keep Frida alive in the public's memory forever. I'm also an avid collector of these quirky and fantastic objects myself, and most of what's presented in the book comes from my ten-year collection.
Writing this book allowed me to organize and reflect on my collection, explain and illustrate it. But I am by no means trying to offer a "theory" – nor is this the case with my rich collection, and it must not be so.
What I'm trying to do is to provide an interesting new direction in a suggestive way, hoping that it will motivate the reader to be interested in entering frida Carlo's complex and multifaceted world. Let's recall: my first "encounter" with Frida — or more accurately, with the artist and numerous reviews of her work — was fleeting. Of course, I know her, she was an icon of the feminist movement in the 1970s. This always begs the question: Is Frida really a feminist? In my opinion, this is a pointless argument because her iconic position among feminists and non-feminists is unique.
This is a phenomenon I mention in this book.
In 1988, there was a new shift in my brief interest in Frida, and her book was first translated into German and published, edited by Andrea Kettenmann, Helga Prignitz-Poda and Salomon Grimberg, published by the Publisher Neue Kritik. It became an important addition to my collection. It was my study of Frida's father, photographer Guillermo Kahlo, that made me feel the urge to see frida Carlo's exhibition. When I saw her exhibition at London's Tate Modern in 2005, I was completely mesmerized by her. Like many other tourists – mostly female visitors – I came home with souvenirs I bought from the museum store. Admittedly, these souvenirs are no substitute for Frida's originals, but they are better than nothing, not to mention that they are a good reminder of the happy times spent with her. To be honest, I already have some of Frida's memorabilia: a tin box with her portrait, earrings made of a crown, a small Mexican wishing board, and a great "Friditas" – a very special Mexican clay statue of Frida.
My early collection came from my abiding interest in folk art: when I saw Frida's work, I was completely drawn to the Mexican folk art elements in her work. I am certainly aware of Frida's close relationship with the folk art of her home country, and the inspiration she derives from it – all of which was documented in Frida's early research. This aspect of the artist's work now receives much less attention.
Current art historians are trying to peel back the "naïve" veneer of Frida Carlo's work, placing more emphasis on her international educational background and Frida's study and reference to different genres of European art from different periods, which are all over her work.
Here, on the other hand, I have chosen a very different approach: my narrative is based on Frida's various appropriations in current popular and folk art, most of which are mass-produced. These Frida crafts can be broadly defined as something that ordinary people can accept and appreciate, and this sense of identity comes from our traditional and urban background, although often contradicting the facts.
My approach is to trace the connection between Frida and these manifestations, and I have studied Frida's biographies in particular, which suggest a hidden connection between her and those who, for various reasons, reimagined her as an idol. The general public was always drawn to Frida's ability to mold herself into a universal work of art, and like Frida herself, her work was representative of Mexico's political and artistic avant-garde.
I know that a book that imitates, reproduces, and reconstructs Frida's artwork is not in the eye of some critics. Most of the catalogues of Frida International exhibitions refer to the "possession" of Frida by urban artists, graffiti artists or mass-produced crafts. But that wasn't the mainstream of Frida's research.
Many traditional feminists also tend to see folk art as "a low-level style of art." So what I'm going to do is, as my focus shifts, to question the concepts of "fine art" and "craftsmanship" again.
This in itself is not a new idea. Diego Rivera himself is battling this problem, and although his own artistic style is the complete opposite of Frida's, he unreservedly appreciates Frida's art and sharply criticizes the arrogance and ignorance of the artistic elite. In another context, my publisher, Tara Books, has been working for years to tease out the relationship between arts and crafts on multiple levels. So the novelty of this book is that I created a unique context for exploring these connections, and I hope the implications resonate more broadly. I'd also love to spark a new discussion about the relationship between feminism and folk art.
Through these funny — sometimes ironic, sometimes touching — pictures and objects, I also want to pay tribute to folk artists who we know little or don't know at all. I want to pay tribute to them because of their creativity, the joy of life they create, and they expose us to a Frida who is constantly refactoring. In this book, I also try to consider them in historical and cultural contexts.
The book is enlightening, but not exhaustive. I also tried to make a logical argument: the first part focused on exploring frida's myth and how she was glorified. Some of these myths are rooted in her particular pain, while others can be traced back to her skilful self-expression. Another question I studied was why Frida made so many points related to various rebel movements. I shed light on this broad subject by quoting, reproducing, or creatively reinterpreting Frida's work, and hope that these associative links open up a broad lineage of meaning that can be—and indeed is—relevant to Frida.
Other chapters devote themselves to Mexican folk art and how Frida incorporated these Mexican folk forms and contents into her work, as many of her contemporaries did. The constant back-and-forth between Frida and folk art is fascinating. On the one hand, Frida's work was inspired by Mexican religious and folk traditions—some of which were reinterpreted to conform to post-Revolutionary Ideas in Mexico, including offerings, family altars, skeletons, and skulls. Correspondingly, folk art not only constantly appeared gifts and souvenirs about Frida, but in the process, also integrated Frida into their system of symbols. For example, to merge Frida with Mexico's national hero, or to present her as the Virgin of Guadalupe – a manifestation of the Mexican religious dimension.
The Aguilar sisters of Mexico and their charming clay man "Friditas" have their own chapter. There are numerous photographs taken in the cities and villages where Frida once lived, in the craft markets of Bogotá, Buenos Aires and Santiago de Chile; and in small craft and folklore shops in New York, Boston and Seville. These shops cater not only to the tastes of Mexican tourists, but also to the nostalgia of Mexican immigrants. These photos prove that, in fact, the "Frida symbol" exists everywhere, and in some places it is even completely unexpected.
Over the past decade, it seems like I've met Frida wherever I go: Frida was already there waiting for me when I went to Visit friends and colleagues in Latin America — either a magnet in a refrigerator or a painting on a small wooden box. I would see her at the bazaars selling urban folk crafts and Christmas gifts to tourists, or at the stalls of street artists in big cities, at music festivals, in political demonstrations ... Frida is everywhere.
The wonderful photos taken by Mexican photographer Rafael Doniz while walking in Mexico City prove it in a poetic way, and at the same time, they offer a new perspective. Raphael Doniz also had a very special relationship with Frida, and he constantly encountered Frida on his urban expeditions.
On my frida tour, I asked a lot of folk artists: Why Frida? What's so special about her? Because she's strong, because she spreads joy, because she's beautiful, because she sells well, because we're proud of her — those are the answers I get. The same is true in different countries such as Mexico, Colombia, Chile, Spain and Turkey. Frida opened a door that opened our hearts: for example, when I went through security at the airport and took my laptop out of Frida's box, even the taciturn staff would smile and say, "That's not... Frieda...... Frida Carlo?"
Juan Coronel Rivera, grandson of Diego Rivera, said it best: "We can all find our own shadow in Frida, because we are all somewhat constrained by the outside world, because we all dream of becoming a painter and aspire to social recognition."
We can also say that we identify with Frida because we feel her joie de vivre (joie de vivre) because she is a strong role model for girls, young women, older women, feminists, artists and political activists. Few women can make other women as happy as Frida. So, at the end of the book, I use a seemingly simple but very important word: Viva la vida.
This is the inspiration I got from Frida. Let's celebrate life.
"Why Don't You Take Pity on the People in Front of You"
The Crow Walks Through the Rose Garden
Xie Liheng
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