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Underground > Art, Fashion & Design >

Kahlo at the Tate

20:31 / 07.06.05

"The majority of the eighty works included are from Mexico and the USA, making this a rare opportunity to view so much of her oeuvre in this country." Can't wait!

Tryphena Absent

00:07 / 08.06.05

I'm looking forward to this exhibition, I haven't seen much of Frida Kahlo's work and it seems like a good opportunity to really get to the heart of it. Is anyone else planning to go?

07:17 / 08.06.05

I was thinking of going this Sunday afternoon -I don't know much about her work either, but did anyone else see the film about her life that was made a couple of years ago? It wasn't very good as a film, but I'm interested in seeing if it was a good introduction to her paintings -they played quite a central role in the film.

16:17 / 08.06.05

I enjoyed that film, actcherley. I definitely want to go to this. Two of her outfits are on display in the windows of Selfridges at the moment -- and there were some good photos of her in the National Portrait Gallery (not sure if they're still on show though)

My granny met Frida Khalo when she was in Mexico City. She'd never tell me anything about those days, but shortly before she died, she described Khalo as "a worm." I never actually found out what she meant by that. Maybe she didn't approve of Diego Rivera's womanising and thought Khalo should not have put up with it...

[Hey, Vincennes, do you want your cushion?]

All Acting Regiment

20:18 / 08.06.05

I like Kahlo a lot, but I'm tired, so I'll go away now and try to think of something worthwhile to add. In the meantime, should we have a discussion about the assertion that she was self centred as an artist?

12:42 / 09.06.05

What do you mean by self-centred -do you mean the act of creating so many self-portraits was self-centred, or that the portraits themselves were self-indulgent? Either way I'd be happy to talk about that but had probably better do so after I've seen more of them!

14:17 / 09.06.05

should we have a discussion about the assertion that she was self centred as an artist?

I don't think she was any more self-centered than any other artist.
Art, after all, is a very introspective undertaking.
I think it's the curse of every artist that we tend to be a bit self-involved.

All Acting Regiment

16:47 / 10.06.05

And indeed, "it is the duty of the artist to present their own personal view so that the viewer can learn how another sees the world"- I forget where that's from but as a quote I think it stands up well.

Kahlo was a force of nature, wasn't she? There's agression, but it's lucid, targetted; she's angry in an enlightened way. All her paintings are beautiful to me.

19:51 / 10.06.05

I might be able to make it, if I can afford the jaunt across the ocean.

Kahlo is probably one of the best artists in the world, at least to me. I find it funny that the "narcissism" argument comes up so much with her... the woman's internal world was so full. Were she a man, she probably wouldn't have had to struggle to make ends meet.

But then again, she wouldn't have had half her subject matter. I still cry every time I look at her paintings regarding the slow loss of her body.

She was beautiful, but in a way that made many people nervous. She had a ronnie and a unibrow, and I still would have slept with her! As ashamed as I am to admit my own assessment of her attractiveness, I still feel that it was a part of her art and therefore, up to some small scrutiny.

I don't know if she would have felt the same, but... there you go.

21:50 / 12.06.05

Wow! It's a feast. So many works and so many unknown to me. Yes, lots of self portraits, but lots of still lifes and more surrealist images too. Much of it is very moving, a lot of it seeming much warmer in the flesh than when reproduced.

I liked the recurrent monkey motif, symbolic of promiscuity and lust. I loved the male deer with Frida's head. I loved My Nurse And I, with the fearsome Mexican nurse in scary preColumbian mask suckling Frida. So much to see and digest! May have to go back a few times.

The electronic guide is a neat piece of kit too, supplying a whole range of background material, spoken and visual.

10:59 / 08.07.05

Has anyone else been to see this yet? I went on a Saturday (I think two weeks after it opened) so it was a bit too crowded to look at anything properly. Still (and I don't mean to sound trivial here, sorry if it comes off like that) I was surprised by how small most of her paintings were. Because I only saw them in the film before that, I assumed they were all larger -but I liked the fact that their size forced the viewer to look at the paintings closely, and to confront the images in them. One that stood out for me was A Few Small Nips; thought that the use of the frame as part of the painting was particularly effective there.

Tryphena Absent

17:45 / 14.07.05

I found A Few Small Nips a really difficult painting to look at and actually had to return to it later, when I'd seen the majority of the exhibition.

What struck me about Kahlo's work was the black humour of it. I knew the general story of Kahlo's life but no one had ever mentioned that so much of it could cause you to smile so much. The pictures of Santa Claus were wonderful and I found her work very astute, perhaps because of that element and having seen the paintings and learnt even more about her and the way that she surely had to interact with her body I find myself even angrier about the accusations of self-absorption that are so readily directed at her by reviewers.

At the point where the self portraits of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera were placed next to each other I found myself really looking at the differences and similarities in their work and I thought that was a good move by the curators.

The sketches were great but the painting that most intrigued me was The Broken Column, which was very simple and clear in meaning but a striking painting.

22:35 / 14.07.05

Cheers for that, Nina. The humour, in retrospect, was startling and unexpected. We always hear about her tragic life of pain and blah blah, Diego shagging around dah de dah, but there was so much humour, satire and black humour both, in the paintings.

A few small nips was interesting but seemed at odds with the work all around it. I found her empathy for the victim convincing but less immediate and nakedly vulnerable than much of the other more personal stuff.

Must go back and see them all again.