Frida Kahlo / Diego RiveraArt in Fusion
Frida Kahlo (1907-1954) is today one of Twentieth-Century Mexico's best-known and most popular artists thanks, of course, to her personality and to the originality of a body of work that escapes any attempt at classification. The work is here, above all, an expression of a life. A tragic and tumultuous life that, in turn, escapes all conventionalism, it is known in its most intimate details and has even been brought to the screen in recent years, turning Frida into a veritable icon.
The sole mention of Frida's name generates enthusiasm and admiration. Her work is seldom shown, yet Fridomania bridges this unusual gap with the proliferation of derived objects found in Mexico's markets and museums, as well as in luxury boutiques in many capital cities. Frida's oeuvre has not been on exhibit in France in the last 15 years. The selection presented by Musée de l'Orangerie includes some of her major works, among them some masterpieces on loan from Museo Dolores Olmedo, one of the most significant private collections of Frida Kahlo's work, such as celebrated Columna rota.
Neither Frida Kahlo's life and her work can be dissociated from her companion, Diego Rivera (1886-1957). Together, they are a legend; together they have entered the pantheon of Twentieth Century Mexican artists. Renowned for his large mural paintings, Rivera also produced an important number of easel works, drawings, and lithographs, which are less well-known by the European audiences. The goal of this show is to describe the career of one of the "three greats" from his early cubist works, testament to his connection to the Parisian artists milieu that occupies such a central position in the l'Orangerie collection, to those that made him the founder of the Twentieth Century Mexican School.
The originality of this exhibition, devoted to the mythic couple of Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, resides in its side-by-side presentation of their works, as if to confirm the impossibility of their divorce, which actually took place but was brought into question immediately, barely a year after their separation. The show will also make a better understanding of their artistic universes possible—artistic universes that are so different yet so complementary, thanks to their shared connection to their native Mexico: a cycle of life and death, revolution and religion, realism and mysticism, the world of urban workers and peasants.
The exhibition is organized by Paris' Établissement public des Musées d'Orsay et de l'Orangerie, with exceptional loans from Museo Dolores Olmedo in Mexico, and will remain open from October 9, 2013, through January 13, 2014.
The curators for Paris are Marie-Paule Vial, Director of the Musée de l'Orangerie, and Béatrice Avanzi and Leïla Jarbouai, from Musée d'Orsay; for Mexico, Josefina García, Director of collections at Museo Dolores Olmedo.
