A Night Out: Frida Kahlo At SFMOMA

Last night I went to see the Frida Kahlo exhibit in San Francisco with my friend LaMexicana (that's her work nickname, though Dog Whisperer would be more accurate in my opinion because she has the best touch with canines of anyone I have ever met-- fearless, this one). It turns out that Kahlo has been one of LaMexicana's favorite artists for as long as she can remember, and she even named the dog that she rescued last spring Frida after the artist.

I admit, with embarrassment, that I did not know who Frida Kahlo was before this week. I immediately recognized her work though because it has been incorporated into so much of the art that I see around San Jose. She is legendary, which has perhaps distorted an accurate portrayal of her life and art-- for one critique, read this piece, "The Trouble With Frida Kahlo."

The pieces that were most powerful for me were the ones that were the most emotionally charged-- "A Few Small Nips," "Henry Ford Hospital," "Suicide of Dorothy Hale," and "The Two Fridas." Less charged but still close to home for me are the quieter "Self Portrait on the Border Between Mexico and The United States" and "My Grandparents, My Parents and I." I also really like "Me and My Parrots" because it reminds me of so much of the Mexican folk art I have seen.

Interestingly, the most disturbing, most emotionally charged pieces were not for sale in the museum gift shop as posters or postcards. LaMexicana's favorite piece is "A Few Small Nips," which she desperately wanted to buy, but she had to settle for a reproduction of "The Two Fridas" instead. I think it is telling that the museum has chosen to sanitize and de-sensationalize Kahlo's work in this way. Actually, I think it is really a shame because her genius was in turning emotion into image-- the pain, the detail and even the surrealistic aspect (maybe due to the drugs she was often prescribed). Or is it just that people who are not emergency room nurses cannot stomach that much blood and gore? I think not. In her essay, "The Trouble With Frida Kahlo," Stephanie Mencimer notes that "Among all the Kahlo tchotchkes now on sale at the NMWA gift shop, only her self-portraits adorn the fridge magnets, not "My Birth," or "A Few Small Nips." So others have noted this incongruity as well. Is it because Kahlo is a woman, or as Mencimer argues, does it have to do with depicting a wholesome image of Kahlo? Neither seem to fully explain the phenomenon to me.

In "A Few Small Nips" I think the rawness, anguish and rage probably speaks to anyone who has had their heart badly broken. Kahlo painted this after discovering her husband, Diego Rivera, was having an affair with her sister. The title is a quotation from a man who was being tried for murdering his wife and said in his defense that he only gave her "a few small nips." The frame of the painting is spattered in blood and gouged, which has a strong visual effect, as if the emotions cannot be contained and will spill out onto the viewer.

The only other piece on exhibit in which the painting spills over onto the frame is the "Suicide of Dorothy Hale," which I found so disturbing I had trouble even looking at it. Although it preceded the event by years, I cannot but help thinking of the images of people jumping from the World Trade towers on Sept 11, 2001 when I see that picture.

"Henry Ford Hospital" is unusual because it is the first painting I have seen depicting the aftermath of a miscarriage. The details remind me a bit of one of my all time favorite artists, Hieronymus Bosch. The autoclave is an especially striking detail for me since it is a piece of medical equipment that is so often overlooked, but so critical.

"My Grandparents, My Parents and I" speaks to the universal divisions in any family, more striking in Kahlo's perhaps because her father was of European Jewish origin and her mother Mexican. I think there is a divide in every family. For me it is the German half and the American Ashkenazi half. I always knew which set of grandparents were calling me in college because my roommate EB would say, "It's the ones with the accent," or "it's the ones without the accent." Two halves to me.

I like "Self Portrait on the Border Between Mexico and The United States" because I have often felt pulled between two countries, growing up in Europe and The US. I have always liked the song "Pines" by the Israeli group Achinoam Nini Gil Dor because it captures that feeling: "Oh my darling, I have grown with you/but my roots are on both sides of the sea"-- and this painting captures the emotions in that song for me in a visual form.

Not only did LaMexicana and I get to see Kahlo's paintings and photos of her, we also took advantage of the related Kahlo film series and got to see the Mexican film "Aventurera." This film about a bourgeois young woman turned cabaret dancer had enough twists to the plot to keep anyone on the edge of their seat.

I'm grateful I got to see this exhibit and that I got to spend an evening in a city. San Francisco is no that far-- I really want to try to make it there more often, because in the past it might as well have been another planet for all the times I visited. I might even try to go back next weekend and see the double feature of films related to the Kahlo exhibit showing then.