Frida: The Artist

I first became aware of Frida’s work in the mid-1980’s, not too long before she shot into superstardom. I’m pretty certain it was a retrospective show at the old SF MOMA when it was still on Van Ness. I loved her work immediately, for one primary reason: it was trippy! As a young gay man in my mid-twenties, living on my own for the first time in SF in an era when AIDS wasn’t quite yet on the radar, I partied hard and did a lot of drugs, with LSD being one of my faves at the time. So OF COURSE I was going to be attracted to Frida’s work, in the same way I was attracted to Salvador Dali’s burning giraffes:

Francis Bacon’s distorted monstrosities:

and Hieronymus Bosch’s maniacal demons:

This art looks really good when you’re really high! Of course, since that initial exposure, I’ve learned a lot more about Frida’s life and how it informed her work, but I still react to her work most strongly on that primary level of “What nightmare is this artist taking me into?”

So in this sense, I have escaped the trap Jonathan Jones describes in his article for The Guardian: “evading the question of aesthetic achievement” in Frida’s work due to her now-famous biography. I’m glad I was exposed to her work early and could experience it on its own terms without being influenced by all we’ve come to know about her since. For me, it was always about the effect the work had on me.

Salma Hayek sees Kahlo's greatness in her “Sisters Are Doing It for Themselves” attitude. Hayak states “What I respond to with Frida is her courage to be unique; her courage to be different. She lived her life exactly as she wanted and never apologized" (qtd. In Jones). Hayak responds to criticism that the film presents too “upbeat” of a portrayal of Kahlo, with all her life’s attendant pain, by saying that Kahlo didn’t see herself as a martyr or victim, and neither should we. “She would wake up in the morning and make an art form of herself; and spend hours decorating herself to go to the market to buy some food, you know, or to stay in the house and paint. This spirit of waking up and transforming yourself into a walking work of art - you're not telling me this was a depressive, obscure person.”

 

Work Cited

Jones, Jonathan. “Salma Hayek on Why Frida Kahlo Was a Great Artist.” The Guardian,
          Guardian News and Media, 14 Feb. 2003, www.theguardian.com/film/2003/feb/14/artsfeatures1.