The Only Smile in the Collection

That's Frida Kahlo on the right, sitting on the lap of a friend in Saint Plotniko in the 1930s. Her husband, muralist Diego Rivera, is on the left. The amazing thing about this photo is it is the only piece of art in the entire MOMA exhibition of works by and of Frida Kahlo, an exhibition largely made up of self-portraits, where she displays even the tiniest smile.



The rest of the time she stares at...herself, straight-on, as if she were posing for her own photograph. Her magnificent choices of colors, her imagery, her angst, her passion, and of course her self-absorption are sent directly into the eyes of the viewer. This is a woman who lived in great physical pain (twisted spine and various organs failing, to say nothing of dealing with a famous philanderer for a husband). And yet her primary subject was always herself. She painted self portrait after self portrait, in various guises but all basically as a Madonna figure whose suffering is never far from the surface. But Frida Kahlo is such a monumentally gifted artist. You see her, you feel for her, she lets you touch her. You can't help yourself.



This one -- her largest work -- is called Two Fridas. On the right as you're looking at the painting, she is dressed as the Tehuana woman that Diego Rivera married, and on the left as the Victorian woman she felt she became after all her injuries and illnesses. If you look close, the woman on the right is holding a small locket of Rivera as a child, out of which flow all the arteries and bleeding hearts. The Victorian woman tries to cut the flow with the scissors on her lap, but fails. Look too long at this one and the despair is almost overwhelming, even though there is, as always, no expression on either woman's face.

There is blood everywhere, expect it. Go early or late in the day, it's crowded. Saint Plotniko is a Frida Kahlo town.