Noticias
From June 16 to November 4
Frida Kahlo´s universe takes over the Victoria & Albert Museum in London
June 12, 2018The Victoria & Albert Museum in the United Kingdom will show personal belongings of the Mexican painter, including clothing, jewelry, letters, medicines and cosmetics at the exhibition Frida Kahlo: Making Herself Up
From June 16 to November 4 2018, the London public will be able to delve into the world and mind of the artist who has been identified as a unique woman, muse, victim, survivor and rebel, an influential figure for artists, fashion designers and popular culture.
In Casa Azul, located in Coyoacán, Mexico City, several closets and warehouses that were closed for 50 years, were opened in 2004. Six thousand photographs, 12 thousand documents and about 300 articles were found, which took four years to be catalogued.
Nearly 200 objects and personal belongings will be used to explore the way in which the Mexican artist created an identity from her clothing, which she also captured in her work.
The design of the exhibition will take the visitor to Frida Kahlo's universe, the historical and cultural context in which she developed her art, with her personal photographic archive and pictures taken by photographers who captured the artist at home.
In addition, the atmosphere of the Casa Azul will be recreated through photographs, paintings and other materials, and a relationship will be established between Frida Kahlo’s paintings, dresses, crowns, flower headdresses and more personal objects.
The pieces were selected by curators Claire Wilcox, from the London museum, and Cirse Henestrosa, who curated the exhibition Appearances can be deceiving: the dresses of Frida Kahlo, which is currently on display at the Frida Kahlo Museum in Mexico City.
For this exhibition, Circe Henestrosa started from an original research she carried out for the curatorship of the exhibition in Coyoacán, which deals with the construction of Kahlo's identity through disability and ethnicity.
Among the pieces that make up the exhibition there are 22 textile presses, pre-Columbian style necklaces, a jade necklace still stained with paint, corsets, orthopedic garments, make-up kits, such as the Ebony pencil that Frida used to mark her eyebrows, her favorite lipstick, Revlon's Everything's Rosy and a red nail varnish.
The public will also appreciate a pair of black velvet shoes, one adapted so that nothing could press on her toes, red leather boots with wedge heels and dragon embroidery.
The corsets shown will be those used by the artist to hold her bones, some of them are made of steel, leather and plaster, and even one that resembles a heavy saddle. Some were decorated by the painter with Mexican flora, hammers and sickles.
The exhibition opens with a brief introduction to the artist's childhood, highlighting the two key moments that defined her identity: an illness at the age of six and the tram accident at 18, which marked the beginning of her career as an artist and the deterioration of her body.
The museum launched the sale of tickets for the exhibition on March 8. In the first few days it sold 10,000 tickets, which is why the summer exhibition is considered a success.
The exhibition will include several parallel activities, such as talks with the curators, a contemporary Mexican fashion event, and a program of activities for the Day of the Dead.
Mexico,Distrito Federal
