Frida Kahlo Without Colour
Recently the art world has had to engage on a deeper level with race, with institutions big and small (including the Norman Rea) rising to meet the curatorial discussion and engage in a wider sense. This reflection does not just apply to the current happenings - rather, this engagement also applies to the long-term institutionalised perspective on race as a whole within the art world.
Frida Kahlo - hailed by fashion aficionados for her dress, embraced by feminists and claimed as a personal hero to Madonna. When I was thirteen I wrote a paper on Frida Kahlo; I examined the tragedies she experienced, her position as a female artist and her tumultuous relationship with her ‘frog’ husband, Diego Rivera. I chose to write about her - as someone who then wasn’t very interested in art - because I was aware of her. Everyone was, and is, aware of her.
Sticker of Frida Kahlo, ‘Wall Of Femmes’ 2013 - Artstor
No female artist of colour seems so revered, so popularised and present in the everyday. Seemingly unrelated art shop museums contain Kahlo notebooks, pens and t-shirts. She is present commercially more than she is present artistically. Many fans of Kahlo don disembodied motifs - the flower crowns, comically drawn on eyebrows. These motifs are engaged with a lack of understanding any deeper meaning or awareness of Frida herself, her decisions to adopt these accessories or her work.
By that I mean that throughout the years, I have witnessed myself and others encounter Frida Kahlo on a regular basis. I feel comfortable claiming her as the most widely commercialised female artist of colour of all time. Be it through Halloween costumes or well-meaning presents from family members who know we enjoy art, Frida is a recurring theme. Why is this? Is it because she is the most successful female artist of colour, so deserves this platform? Or is it simply because the bright colours associated with her imagery look nice on a tote bag?
Despite these encounters, I have not witnessed Kahlo integrated into the artworld in the same way as other artists. She has been seemingly positioned as an outsider, acceptable in a museum shop, but not in the museum. It’s not offensive to me, as a woman from Mexican heritage, but it is worth examining.
Kahlo has been accepted by the LGBTQ+ community for her sexual and gender fluidity. The modes in which she adopted and owned her place as a woman of colour - embracing her facial hair and emphasising traditional dress - were her means of expression. Her image has been popularised almost inseparably from the mode in which she expressed her identity through dress. There is discourse surrounding her self-invention through textiles, her affairs - but I am not concerned with these aspects of Kahlo when it comes to her commercialisation. Regardless of her past, or position as a female queer artist - the ‘look’ of Frida Kahlo has been appropriated over all other aspects. Her image has been popularised almost inseparably from the mode in which she expressed her identity through dress.
The permeation of her imagery is because Frida is relatable. The chosen imagery plastered on merchandise needs to be analysed. In what ways do we cherry pick the ways that we find her relatable? The portrayal of the eyebrow flourish and upper lip hair do not make Kahlo any less conventionally attractive, and despite the emphasis on her position as a woman of colour, in her own locale she was white-passing. Think: does her position as a white passing Mexican woman contribute to her success?
Portrait of Frida Kahlo found in Isamu Noguchi’s archives, ca. 1930s
She has not only been adopted as an aesthetic choice; Frida Kahlo is the go-to when one is, on short notice, prompted to think of a non-white female artist. And that’s OK - it’s good! It is progress to create and normalise an awareness towards a female, Mexican artist. But we must, as consumers of art and trendy tote bags, acknowledge the issues surrounded by this popularisation of the individual over her work itself, which considers more than the unibrow: topics of infertility, death and the self. Kahlo was a dynamic woman, who concerned herself with issues of femininity, gender-nonconformity and anti-capitalism. There was, and is, more to her than her imagery.
The social cost of using Frida this way contributes to a wider notion of abandoning what she stood for, and seeing only her image. Have we not moved past valuing a woman only for the way she looks?