Getting to Know Frida Virtually

Last year when I was killing time at San Francisco International Airport, I went to the modern art gift shop and found myself thumbing through a small book of quotes by Frida Kahlo, the iconic 20th-century Mexican painter. The book was bite-sized inspiration, meant to be consumed while drifting through in-between spaces, an alternative to more substantial materials. The following is a bite-sized tour, meant to be experienced while looking forward to the real thing, whatever that may be.

Navigate to the Museo Dolores Olmedo here, originally located in Mexico City, now located on your device through Google Museum View. The museum has a sizable collection of Kahlo’s works, which I will be focusing on today. Kahlo is best known for her expressive self-portraits, which use magical realist elements to explore themes of identity, gender, pain, and post-colonialism. Her work was also inspired by elements of folk art, contributing to the Mexicayotl movement, which sought to define a uniquely Mexican identity.

Click on the second picture on the bottom. There should be a small white rectangle on the bottom left of your screen with the title of the painting, The Broken Column. You can click on this for a higher-resolution image of the artwork.

“I tried to drown my sorrows, but the bastards learned how to swim, and now I am overwhelmed by this decent and good feeling.”

Kahlo’s life was marked by physical strife- she had polio as a child, and suffered a severe bus accident at eighteen, which left her bedridden for three months. Painting from her bed, she kindled her interest in art and explored her emotions. The accident left her with lifelong medical problems, and The Broken Column was painted right after a spinal surgery which left her in a metal corset to help alleviate the pain. While her other famous self-portraits feature a variety of animals and other lush natural elements, here she is depicted weeping alone, standing uncomfortably upright in a deserted landscape.

Q: Would you agree with certain critics that she is using elements of Jesus iconography? How does your answer influence the way you interpret this painting?

Next, click and drag to look around the room and try to find our next painting, which depicts Kahlo as a baby being breastfed by her nurse. If you‘re having trouble finding this, click on the sixth picture on the bottom.

“They thought I was a Surrealist, but I wasn’t. I never painted dreams. I painted my own reality.”

My Nurse and I depicts a sense of separation from her mother. Kahlo had a wet nurse in real life, and this figure is depicted with a dark mask that veils her emotions towards Kahlo, who has the face of an adult and the body of a baby. The detailing of the nurse’s mammary glands highlight the physical, medical relationship between the two rather than the emotional.

Q: How does the background of this painting make you feel? What effects do the vegetation and the white rain have on your perception of the foregrounded figures?

Finding the next painting is challenging, so click on the ninth picture on the bottom. (If you’re really determined to simulate finding this painting: face My Nurse and I and imagine turning right and walking through the exhibition. Turn a corner to the left, passing a huge black-and-white photograph of Kahlo that covers a wall. Next to the glass doors that lead to another exhibition is a small, framed self-portrait with monkeys.)

“I paint self-portraits because I am so often alone, because I am the person I know best.”

Self-portrait with Small Monkey is one of many iconic Kahlo paintings that show her surrounded by animals. Kahlo owned multiple pets: monkeys, dogs, birds, and even a fawn. She had suffered multiple miscarriages in her life, another common theme in her work, and is known to have referred to her monkeys as symbolic of the children she was never able to bear. Monkeys are also an important presence in Aztec culture; as an artist who painted during the Mexican Revolution, Kahlo recognized the importance of pre-Hispanic culture in Mexican art.

Q: What might the golden ribbon wrapped around Kahlo and the animals’ necks signify about her relationship to them? What do you make of the nail in the clouds at the top left corner of the painting?

“There have been two great accidents in my life. One was the trolley, and the other was Diego. Diego was by far the worst.”

If you have time to explore, the same exhibition also has a number of paintings by Diego Rivera, a Mexican painter and Kahlo’s husband whose art overshadowed hers during her early career. She was often frustrated by the patriarchal structures of Mexican society that defined marriage, as well as Rivera’s frequent affairs. One wonders what it means for her work to be commonly displayed alongside his even today, and the entanglement of two histories that cannot quite be separated in their legacy.

I leave you with one last Kahlo quote: “Doctor, if you let me drink this tequila, I promise I won’t drink at my funeral.”