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Downloaded from
YTS.MX

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Official YIFY movies site:
YTS.MX

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"It's been such a long time since I've written

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that I don't know where to start this letter.

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I've never suffered so much,

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and I did not think I could take so much pain.

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I know it's going to take me years

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to be able to get out of this mess that I have in my head.

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That's why I've decided to tell you everything now."

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Frida Kahlo was a genius.

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She is in many ways a unique artist.

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Her work transcends time.

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She is iconic.

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You feel like you know her.

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I've met people who really don't like Frida Kahlo's paintings.

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I think it is because they are so visceral, so personal.

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She could say, through art, the unsayable,

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the repressed, the taboo, and give it a voice.

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That's why she is so important.

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Whatever point people enter into thinking about Frida Kahlo,

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whether it's the biography, whether it's the tragedy,

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or whether it's the,

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"What was this artist doing and who were they as an intellectual?"

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there is a story there to be enjoyed

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that is deeply immersive and captivating.

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Frida Kahlo was born on the 6th of July 1907

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in Coyoacán, a fashionable suburb of Mexico City.

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She lived with her parents and three sisters in a house built by her father,

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which became known as the Casa Azul – The Blue House.

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Her mother was Mexican, of Indian and Spanish descent,

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and Catholic, which is important,

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because there's a lot of Catholic imagery in Frida Kahlo's paintings.

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Her father was German and an immigrant to Mexico,

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and Frida Kahlo had polio when she was a young child

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and her father was the one that helped her get stronger afterward,

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getting her to do all sorts of athletic things.

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She was the child that he said, "Frida is the most like me"

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and he almost treated her like a boy.

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Mexico City was a very cosmopolitan city.

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It had had a cultural life for several hundred years.

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The Mexico City elite are very much emulating the high culture of Europe.

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And that's something that might have been what motivated her father

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to come to Mexico in the first place.

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This sophisticated capital with economic opportunity and cultural opportunity.

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Guillermo Kahlo, my great-grandfather

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was from Pforzheim in Germany on the edge of the Black Forest

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He arrived in Mexico aged 19 with a backpack

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without speaking any Spanish

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He was an avid reader

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He painted accomplished watercolours

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in a European tradition

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He was a photographer

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and that was the first contact Frida had with art

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seeing her father take photographs

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I'm sure that the way later on

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Frida came to pose throughout her life

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in a very natural way

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originated from there

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posing for her father Guillermo Kahlo.

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She was a very active child

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and rambunctious and mischievous and kind of fun.

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She was one of the very few girls

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accepted to the best school in Mexico City,

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the National Preparatory School,

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and there she became part of a group called Las Cachuchas.

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They were all very brilliant

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and they actually even became a little bit political.

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writers, philosophers...

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One of them was her boyfriend, Alejandro Gómez Arias.

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And it's really important to understand

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that Frida Kahlo was on a track to become a doctor,

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so her schooling was in science.

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It was a very macho society, very traditional.

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She was very different from the beginning.

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But one day in 1925 - September 17th, to be exact -

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she and Alejandro Gómez Arias took a bus from Mexico City,

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where their school was, to Coyoacán, where the Blue House is, and...

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a tram slammed across and just completely devastated her.

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It was a fatal crash. People died.

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Kahlo was changed forever.

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The accident fractured Kahlo's spine,

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collarbone, ribs and right leg in eleven places.

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Her right foot and left shoulder were dislocated,

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and a metal handrail pierced her pelvis.

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She spent months recovering.

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Enforced confinement returned Kahlo

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to her childhood interests in drawing and painting.

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Although untutored, she had already shown artistic talent as a young girl.

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"I began to paint after the accident.

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Papa gave me a little box of paints

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and a small book that told me how to prepare the canvases.

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My boyfriend Gómez Arias bought me books on painters from Europe.

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These were the first books on art that fell into my hands."

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When we think about what happened,

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she was hospitalised, she felt very lonely

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she had to drop out of school,

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she would never be a doctor,

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people thought she would never walk again.

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There was a mirror fixed inside the canopy of her bed,

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and a wooden easel, and she started to paint.

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And this painting she painted for Alejandro.

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At that time she complained

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that Alejandro didn't come to see her

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His family decided to send him to Germany

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so he didn't have to spend his life with an ill woman

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He left her

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This painting reflects her broad knowledge of the European art

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that her father had taught her about

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but also her great love that will never be forgotten

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for Alejandro Gómez Arias.

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Kahlo's Self-Portrait in a Velvet Dress

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is a very important early painting,

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not the first painting but the first sort of formal self-portrait.

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The portrait relates to the photograph that her father took of her,

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where she is wearing a black silk dress and she is seated in a chair

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and she's holding a book, not a brush, not a palette,

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and her hair is short there as well.

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So Self-Portrait in a Velvet Dress

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is Kahlo making a declarative statement to her boyfriend

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for whom she painted that painting

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that I am the alluring seductive emancipated young modern.

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We see her with that intense gaze that will become her look.

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When she wrote to Alejandro, she called it "Your Botticelli",

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so she associated herself with Botticelli's The Birth of Venus.

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When you look at the way her hands are placed,

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the gesture is a kind of awkward beginner's attempt

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to show the Botticelli hand.

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She has a very low-cut dress,

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so she tries to accentuate her femininity

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although she keeps her connected eyebrows

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which, by the way, she often writes that she loves her eyebrows.

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I think that's a kind of rebellion that speaks to me.

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She knew she could adopt an alternative beauty.

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It's a beautiful painting, partly for its emotional resonance, I think.

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She was able to put into it that feeling of need

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which is strong in all of Frida Kahlo's art,

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of desperate need for somebody to love her.

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Her earliest paintings, other than the self-portrait,

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are almost all of family and friends.

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They're very dark, and they're very European, sort of Renaissance.

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And she clearly saw Italian Renaissance paintings.

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I mean people in Mexico were extremely sophisticated

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about what was going on in Europe.

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It wasn't an isolated country.

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Overwhelming medical bills forced Kahlo

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to abandon her studies and her dreams of a medical career.

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Instead she turned to politics.

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In 1928 she joined the Communist Party

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Diego Rivera.

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Muralism.

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The muralists formed in the wake of the 1910 Revolution -

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a decade long civil war

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that ended with the overthrowing of a 30-year dictatorship

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and the birth of a new Mexico.

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You have to remember that Mexico was a new country,

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with a new government,

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with a new social movement that was reflected in its art.

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You had Diego painting murals in the public buildings.

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And after the revolution,

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Mexican society changed drastically.

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Mexico became the centre of culture in America.

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You had a great migration of painters, writers and intellectuals

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coming to Mexico to experience this social revolution.

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You cannot understand the muralists and their art

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if you don't understand the revolution

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The revolution changed Mexico

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It brought about renewal and reform

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It embraced both popular Mexican art and pre-Hispanic culture

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and gave birth to a great number of major artists

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who defined Mexico by saying "We are Mexican."

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It was a renaissance that was political,

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dismissing the colonial, dismissing the Spanish,

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dismissing the bourgeois

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and trying to adapt and adopt

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the native, indigenous Mexican culture,

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the pre-Hispanic culture.

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Kahlo became very, very politically aware.

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One of the earliest photographs of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera together

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is she's wearing this pencil skirt

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and she's marching with this huge Rivera,

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and it's a Mayday parade

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and it's for the workers that they're marching.

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And so you have in Frida and Diego the perfect couple.

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One was a revolutionary that was free-flying

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and the other you have the very professional powerful painter

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that painted the spirit of Mexico

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and the spirit of the people of Mexico.

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Rivera was also a larger-than-life celebrity,

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notorious for his numerous and very public love affairs.

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He was to change the direction of Kahlo's life,

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artistically, politically and emotionally.

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They married in 1929.

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She apparently wore a servant's clothes.

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In her wedding photograph she's smoking.

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You can see her breaking all the proper modes of behaviour even then.

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Her mother said, "It's like a marriage between an elephant and a dove."

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Her father was not against it.

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They had financial problems,

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and he realised that Diego Rivera was going to be able to support her

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and pay her medical bills,

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that were going to be large for the rest of her life.

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It was a tumultuous marriage.

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But her first paintings after the marriage

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are very different from the ones before it.

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In 1930 Diego Rivera was commissioned

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to paint a series of murals in the United States.

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In November the couple arrived in San Francisco.

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Kahlo's new married life in America

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was marked by a change in her mode of dress,

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and also her style of painting.

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In San Francisco,

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in opposition to what the American women are wearing,

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she puts on the persona of the Tehuana,

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the Mexican woman.

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That's the first time she actually embraces that.

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She was always interested in Mexicanidad

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and devoted to all things Mexican for political reasons,

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but here she kind of makes it her own,

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that's where she really establishes her sartorial identity.

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And she chooses especially costumes from Tehuantepec

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where the women are known for their matriarchal society,

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for their independence, beauty,

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but also its a pre-Hispanic area where indigenous culture thrived

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in spite of colonial culture.

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So it's a very political statement.

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Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera was painted in San Francisco.

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The painting is intentionally naïve.

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This is a style of painting in this context of revolutionary transformation.

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So in a country where the elite had valued the high art of Europe

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since the colonial period

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they make a conscious choice to reject all of that

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and to turn towards the local,

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what we call in Spanish "arte popular"

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which is folk art, the art of the people.

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Against a green background, you have Frida Kahlo,

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for the first time, showing herself as a Tehuana woman,

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wearing a red rebozo and a green dress

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and her hair braided in Tehuana style.

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And next to her is her husband, the great Diego Rivera.

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And right at the centre we see her placing her hand on his.

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Her head is tilted towards him.

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His head turns away and it is in the direction of his other hand,

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a palette and brushes.

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She shows herself as the demure little Mexican wife

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and shows him as the great master painter.

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You see her in the role of wife and in the role of "La Mexicana",

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the paradigmatic Mexican woman.

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Eventually we see her give up on the role of wife

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but she never gives up on the role of the Mexican woman.

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That becomes just a central part of her identity.

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From 1926, where she painted her first portrait,

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to this more Mexican painting of her with Rivera

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in 1931,

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is a great leap,

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but what happened afterwards is an even greater leap.

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00:21:11,542 --> 00:21:15,542
So if we move from 1931 to 1932

257
00:21:15,626 --> 00:21:21,960
we see her style, her painting, her art change dramatically.

258
00:22:13,709 --> 00:22:16,960
This portrait representing Luther Burbank

259
00:22:16,960 --> 00:22:20,085
is about a North American scientist

260
00:22:21,168 --> 00:22:24,001
Frida didn't know him as such

261
00:22:24,085 --> 00:22:28,085
but visited his house in Santa Rosa, California

262
00:22:28,085 --> 00:22:31,793
during a trip taken with Diego Rivera

263
00:22:31,793 --> 00:22:35,960
who had been invited to paint murals on various public buildings.

264
00:22:37,210 --> 00:22:38,626
Burbank had died already

265
00:22:38,626 --> 00:22:41,252
but Burbank was a celebrity horticulturalist.

266
00:22:41,252 --> 00:22:44,626
His life's mission was to increase the world's food supply

267
00:22:44,626 --> 00:22:46,293
by hybridising plants.

268
00:22:46,377 --> 00:22:49,751
So Kahlo's painting is directly based on a photograph

269
00:22:49,835 --> 00:22:52,085
that appeared in a magazine.

270
00:22:52,085 --> 00:22:55,918
There perhaps the first evidence that Kahlo painted from photographs.

271
00:22:56,793 --> 00:22:59,043
The Luther Burbank portrait is fascinating

272
00:22:59,127 --> 00:23:02,001
because it is demonstrable evidence

273
00:23:02,085 --> 00:23:07,127
that Kahlo had been exposed to some of the ideas of Surrealism.

274
00:23:07,127 --> 00:23:11,377
The Surrealist manifestos were being read by Mexican intellectuals.

275
00:23:11,377 --> 00:23:16,252
There are articles in the Mexico City newspapers debating what Surrealism is.

276
00:23:16,252 --> 00:23:18,335
So I have no doubt in my mind

277
00:23:18,335 --> 00:23:21,252
that Kahlo would have been reading the Mexico City newspaper.

278
00:23:22,543 --> 00:23:24,543
A sketch of the painting survives

279
00:23:24,543 --> 00:23:27,210
and she makes some changes to the composition.

280
00:23:27,210 --> 00:23:32,501
So this is also evidence that Kahlo wasn't taking the blank canvas

281
00:23:32,501 --> 00:23:35,377
and entirely creating the composition on the canvas.

282
00:23:35,377 --> 00:23:36,876
She was sketching.

283
00:23:36,960 --> 00:23:39,835
You can compare the sketch of Burbank with the painting

284
00:23:39,835 --> 00:23:41,960
and there are some important differences.

285
00:23:41,960 --> 00:23:45,751
She changes the foliate texture of the leaves.

286
00:23:45,835 --> 00:23:48,210
She includes two trees in the final painting

287
00:23:48,210 --> 00:23:52,584
that are a direct reference to Luther Burbank's hybridising plants.

288
00:23:52,668 --> 00:23:59,419
In one the tree is a conventional looking citrus tree with leafy foliage

289
00:23:59,501 --> 00:24:02,293
and in the other tree there's almost no foliage

290
00:24:02,377 --> 00:24:04,626
and there are these gigantic yellow fruits.

291
00:24:05,626 --> 00:24:09,751
In the final painting Burbank emerges from the trunk of a tree.

292
00:24:09,835 --> 00:24:12,001
He's holding a philodendron,

293
00:24:12,085 --> 00:24:14,335
the two citrus trees are in the background

294
00:24:14,419 --> 00:24:16,709
and his feet have transformed into roots

295
00:24:16,793 --> 00:24:19,584
that are anchored in a body buried in the ground.

296
00:24:19,668 --> 00:24:22,043
That is based on Burbank's own story

297
00:24:22,127 --> 00:24:24,252
because he had himself buried on his property.

298
00:24:24,252 --> 00:24:27,960
So there are always artistic conversations in Kahlo's paintings.

299
00:24:29,918 --> 00:24:32,668
I think in Frida's case

300
00:24:32,668 --> 00:24:36,710
she identified with him in that she saw him

301
00:24:36,710 --> 00:24:41,168
as a man that in a way experimented with life and death

302
00:24:41,835 --> 00:24:45,710
It reminded her of how the pre-Hispanic world

303
00:24:45,710 --> 00:24:49,793
perceived this cycle of life

304
00:24:49,793 --> 00:24:54,419
where man finds sustenance to live on Earth

305
00:24:54,501 --> 00:24:56,085
from the earth itself

306
00:24:56,085 --> 00:24:59,501
But once dead we are buried back in the earth

307
00:25:00,584 --> 00:25:05,043
So she represents him as a man-tree

308
00:25:05,710 --> 00:25:12,876
We see him standing but his feet become the tree trunk

309
00:25:12,960 --> 00:25:14,960
that is rooted in the earth

310
00:25:15,002 --> 00:25:17,002
that is rooted in a corpse

311
00:25:17,002 --> 00:25:19,335
which in fact is his own corpse

312
00:25:21,501 --> 00:25:25,252
She allows herself to create this fantastic world

313
00:25:25,252 --> 00:25:29,002
between Luther Burbank's reality

314
00:25:29,002 --> 00:25:32,751
combined with the pre-Hispanic world

315
00:25:32,835 --> 00:25:34,751
which was so important to her.

316
00:25:36,543 --> 00:25:39,751
So it's a very important early mature painting

317
00:25:39,835 --> 00:25:42,377
because then she spends the decade of the '30s

318
00:25:42,377 --> 00:25:45,960
making these small format, small figure,

319
00:25:45,960 --> 00:25:49,002
complex allegorical compositions.

320
00:25:54,876 --> 00:25:59,918
In April 1932 Rivera and Kahlo travelled to Detroit

321
00:26:00,002 --> 00:26:02,002
where Rivera was to paint a mural

322
00:26:02,002 --> 00:26:05,419
on the theme of modern industry at the Institute of Arts.

323
00:26:07,085 --> 00:26:10,793
Rivera was delighted to be in the heart of American industry.

324
00:26:11,584 --> 00:26:14,252
Kahlo was less pleased.

325
00:26:17,543 --> 00:26:20,668
"This city seems to me like a shabby old village.

326
00:26:20,668 --> 00:26:22,043
I don't like it.

327
00:26:24,002 --> 00:26:28,210
But I am happy because Diego is working very contentedly here,

328
00:26:28,294 --> 00:26:31,294
and he has found a lot of material for his frescoes.

329
00:26:32,626 --> 00:26:35,419
He is enchanted with the factories and the machines,

330
00:26:35,501 --> 00:26:37,626
like a child with a new toy.

331
00:26:39,168 --> 00:26:42,960
The industrial part of Detroit is really most interesting,

332
00:26:42,960 --> 00:26:48,085
the rest, as in all of the United States, is ugly and stupid.

333
00:26:54,501 --> 00:26:57,501
The most important thing I want to consult with you about

334
00:26:57,585 --> 00:27:00,377
is the fact I am two months pregnant.

335
00:27:01,835 --> 00:27:05,751
Given my health I thought it would be better to have an abortion.

336
00:27:05,835 --> 00:27:08,960
I want you to tell me what you think in all honesty

337
00:27:09,002 --> 00:27:10,835
since I don't know what to do.

338
00:27:12,918 --> 00:27:16,127
You know better than anyone else what kind of shape I am in.

339
00:27:16,668 --> 00:27:19,877
First, because of the inheritance I carry in my blood,

340
00:27:19,877 --> 00:27:22,501
I don't think the child will come out healthy.

341
00:27:23,585 --> 00:27:26,043
Secondly, I am not strong

342
00:27:26,127 --> 00:27:28,793
and the pregnancy would weaken me even more.

343
00:27:30,002 --> 00:27:32,793
Here I don't have any relatives who could help me

344
00:27:32,877 --> 00:27:34,668
during and after my pregnancy.

345
00:27:36,002 --> 00:27:40,002
No matter how much poor Diego wants to help me he cannot,

346
00:27:40,002 --> 00:27:43,668
since he has all that work and a thousand more things.

347
00:27:45,710 --> 00:27:49,127
I don't think Diego is very interested in having a child

348
00:27:49,127 --> 00:27:52,127
since what he is most concerned with is his work,

349
00:27:52,127 --> 00:27:54,585
and he is more than right.

350
00:27:54,585 --> 00:27:57,918
Children would come in third or fourth place."

351
00:28:46,877 --> 00:28:49,710
She became pregnant in Detroit

352
00:28:49,710 --> 00:28:52,501
and after two months she began bleeding

353
00:28:53,585 --> 00:28:58,835
One month later she wrote again to her friend Dr Leo Eloesser

354
00:28:59,543 --> 00:29:02,127
and she told him she had been bleeding

355
00:29:02,127 --> 00:29:04,294
they had taken her to hospital

356
00:29:04,294 --> 00:29:05,918
and she had lost the baby.

357
00:29:11,294 --> 00:29:16,419
Henry Ford Hospital is one of the first works of art

358
00:29:16,501 --> 00:29:23,043
that really made Frida Kahlo a radical, bold, unprecedented artist.

359
00:29:24,918 --> 00:29:29,543
There is a whole tradition of how the naked woman in a bed is shown

360
00:29:29,543 --> 00:29:32,835
but Kahlo completely dismantles that tradition.

361
00:29:32,835 --> 00:29:35,835
She is showing her experience,

362
00:29:35,835 --> 00:29:38,043
but the experience is one of miscarriage

363
00:29:38,127 --> 00:29:42,210
which has never been displayed anywhere.

364
00:29:42,294 --> 00:29:44,626
It wasn't worthy of art.

365
00:29:44,710 --> 00:29:48,793
So showing a naked woman but not as an object of desire,

366
00:29:48,877 --> 00:29:52,127
not as a sexualised object,

367
00:29:52,127 --> 00:29:54,877
but as the subject of her own story.

368
00:29:55,877 --> 00:29:58,252
She shows her body kind of twisted,

369
00:29:58,252 --> 00:30:04,169
she shows her stomach bloated and she shows vaginal blood.

370
00:30:04,169 --> 00:30:05,626
To the best of my knowledge

371
00:30:05,710 --> 00:30:10,085
this the first time ever where vaginal blood is on display.

372
00:30:12,294 --> 00:30:17,960
Surrounding her and linked to her with red strings

373
00:30:18,044 --> 00:30:23,169
are different objects that she associated with her failed body.

374
00:30:23,169 --> 00:30:28,252
She also has the unborn foetus which is what she lost.

375
00:30:29,626 --> 00:30:33,668
In the background we see Henry Ford Factory

376
00:30:33,752 --> 00:30:37,461
which is where Diego spent all of his time painting

377
00:30:37,543 --> 00:30:40,918
so we have this tension between

378
00:30:41,002 --> 00:30:47,877
the male, external, Diego Rivera focus of Detroit

379
00:30:47,877 --> 00:30:52,918
and then this intimate female experience of loss.

380
00:30:55,461 --> 00:30:57,585
The other thing that is radical here

381
00:30:57,585 --> 00:31:00,918
is that we have a lot of visualisations of birth,

382
00:31:01,002 --> 00:31:02,668
think of nativity scenes,

383
00:31:02,752 --> 00:31:04,543
think of the birth of the Virgin,

384
00:31:06,169 --> 00:31:11,918
but we never see birth visualised in such a way.

385
00:31:12,002 --> 00:31:19,994
Here you have the naked body producing blood and no baby.

386
00:31:20,085 --> 00:31:25,294
So it's an anti-nativity scene and that's why it's radical.

387
00:31:26,835 --> 00:31:31,960
I also think it is a work that begins to take

388
00:31:32,002 --> 00:31:36,002
devotional paintings in churches as a reference

389
00:31:37,002 --> 00:31:40,877
These devotional paintings which tell a story.

390
00:31:45,461 --> 00:31:48,461
These traditional Mexican devotional paintings

391
00:31:48,543 --> 00:31:50,960
were known as retablos or ex-votos.

392
00:31:51,918 --> 00:31:54,835
Small, naïve works painted on metal.

393
00:31:59,002 --> 00:32:03,085
In times of distress you would relay your concerns to a retablos painter.

394
00:32:04,501 --> 00:32:09,085
For a few pesos, they painted your story and wrote an inscription underneath.

395
00:32:12,085 --> 00:32:15,085
You displayed the work in your local church or shrine

396
00:32:15,169 --> 00:32:17,501
and asked for deliverance from the saint.

397
00:32:18,668 --> 00:32:22,668
These retablos became a major influence on Kahlo's work.

398
00:32:44,169 --> 00:32:46,960
When she discovered ex-votos

399
00:32:47,044 --> 00:32:50,835
she fell in love with them so much that she started her own collection

400
00:32:52,336 --> 00:32:54,085
She wasn't a Catholic

401
00:32:54,169 --> 00:32:56,501
but she was very focused on its roots

402
00:32:56,585 --> 00:32:57,793
its culture

403
00:32:58,461 --> 00:33:01,085
It was a source of inspiration in many of her works

404
00:33:02,252 --> 00:33:04,044
Possibly because of her illness

405
00:33:04,044 --> 00:33:08,710
she was unable to paint on a canvas

406
00:33:08,710 --> 00:33:10,752
or to go up scaffolding

407
00:33:11,627 --> 00:33:16,252
She adopted small formats inspired by the ex-votos

408
00:33:16,336 --> 00:33:22,835
with the technique of oil on wood or metal

409
00:33:23,835 --> 00:33:27,627
They were painted on metal

410
00:33:27,627 --> 00:33:30,461
because they would be hung on a wall

411
00:33:30,960 --> 00:33:33,252
A wall where there is damp

412
00:33:33,336 --> 00:33:35,461
and a canvas would rot

413
00:33:36,668 --> 00:33:44,085
They were painted on sheets of copper, zinc or tin

414
00:33:44,752 --> 00:33:50,668
This tin which was often used for storing tequila

415
00:33:50,752 --> 00:33:52,461
when they transported tequila containers

416
00:33:53,419 --> 00:33:59,419
Her smaller pieces are clearly based on an ex-voto

417
00:34:00,835 --> 00:34:05,044
I call them 'little films' with a beginning and an end

418
00:34:05,044 --> 00:34:08,752
where the story is told through the scene

419
00:34:08,752 --> 00:34:12,293
and the text gives us the story that we want to tell

420
00:34:14,168 --> 00:34:17,168
I think that it's true Mexican popular art

421
00:34:17,252 --> 00:34:20,252
because you don't need to follow rules

422
00:34:20,252 --> 00:34:23,002
or academic thinking to paint an ex-voto

423
00:34:23,668 --> 00:34:26,668
You just need to have the heart and the faith

424
00:34:26,752 --> 00:34:28,835
that you find in those things.

425
00:34:35,043 --> 00:34:38,252
"Frida began to work on a series of masterpieces

426
00:34:38,252 --> 00:34:41,293
which had no precedent in the history of art.

427
00:34:44,085 --> 00:34:48,502
Paintings which exalted the feminine qualities of endurance,

428
00:34:48,502 --> 00:34:52,335
reality, cruelty, and suffering.

429
00:34:54,002 --> 00:35:00,377
Never before had a woman put such agonised poetry on canvas

430
00:35:00,461 --> 00:35:03,461
as Frida did in Detroit."

431
00:35:05,211 --> 00:35:06,627
Diego Rivera.

432
00:35:11,919 --> 00:35:14,044
She became an artist –

433
00:35:14,044 --> 00:35:19,710
and we see that she intentionally knows that she became an artist –

434
00:35:19,794 --> 00:35:25,461
in August of 1932, so it's like a month after she almost died.

435
00:35:26,877 --> 00:35:30,960
She goes to a lithograph shop, a print shop,

436
00:35:31,044 --> 00:35:35,169
and she makes the first and last lithograph in her life.

437
00:35:36,252 --> 00:35:38,627
She painted on the litho, on the stone.

438
00:35:38,627 --> 00:35:44,086
She painted like a fresco from one corner to the diagonal corner,

439
00:35:44,086 --> 00:35:49,127
and here we have Frida Kahlo split in half.

440
00:35:49,794 --> 00:35:53,794
One half of her we see the foetus.

441
00:35:53,794 --> 00:35:55,752
We see cell division.

442
00:35:55,752 --> 00:35:58,710
In utero you also see a foetus,

443
00:35:58,794 --> 00:36:02,835
and there are different ages, so it's the story, the biography.

444
00:36:02,919 --> 00:36:06,543
You see when she tried to abort the child

445
00:36:06,627 --> 00:36:11,002
and then the age he would have been at the time of the miscarriage,

446
00:36:11,086 --> 00:36:14,461
but that's the part of her that was not productive;

447
00:36:14,543 --> 00:36:17,086
that she couldn't reproduce.

448
00:36:17,086 --> 00:36:19,585
The other part of her,

449
00:36:19,669 --> 00:36:22,710
there is a lot of the fertility of nature,

450
00:36:22,794 --> 00:36:25,835
with a lot of shapes that echo the foetus,

451
00:36:25,919 --> 00:36:28,835
but then she grows a third arm

452
00:36:28,919 --> 00:36:32,960
and in her hand she holds the palette.

453
00:36:33,044 --> 00:36:37,461
It's the same palette that Diego Rivera held before.

454
00:36:37,543 --> 00:36:41,835
So a failed mother, no longer a wife,

455
00:36:41,919 --> 00:36:44,086
she's on her own without him,

456
00:36:44,086 --> 00:36:48,044
she holds the palette and it's the birth of an artist.

457
00:36:50,086 --> 00:36:53,919
Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera returned to Mexico.

458
00:36:53,919 --> 00:36:55,461
She hated Detroit.

459
00:36:55,543 --> 00:36:59,378
He was furious at Frida for having made him go back.

460
00:37:00,044 --> 00:37:02,211
They moved back, not into Coyoacán,

461
00:37:02,211 --> 00:37:04,543
but back into some houses

462
00:37:04,627 --> 00:37:09,211
that Juan O'Gormen a modern architect had built for them in San Angel.

463
00:37:09,211 --> 00:37:12,169
These were two attached houses,

464
00:37:12,169 --> 00:37:14,211
one for him and one for her,

465
00:37:14,211 --> 00:37:17,002
with a bridge upstairs leading between the two.

466
00:37:18,002 --> 00:37:21,294
When Frida was mad at Diego she could just close the door.

467
00:37:21,378 --> 00:37:25,127
He would have to plead with her to let him across on that bridge.

468
00:37:25,919 --> 00:37:28,502
It was a bad time for both of them,

469
00:37:28,502 --> 00:37:32,378
and Diego Rivera took it out on Frida Kahlo

470
00:37:32,378 --> 00:37:35,710
and he had an affair with her younger sister Cristina,

471
00:37:35,794 --> 00:37:38,169
who was just a year younger than Frida

472
00:37:38,253 --> 00:37:41,169
and was the person closest to Frida in the world.

473
00:37:41,253 --> 00:37:43,461
They adored each other.

474
00:37:43,543 --> 00:37:46,336
This was really hurtful so they separated.

475
00:37:48,627 --> 00:37:52,627
It was to be the first of many separations in their relationship.

476
00:37:55,752 --> 00:37:59,002
"You know better than anyone what Diego means to me.

477
00:38:00,086 --> 00:38:02,961
She was the sister whom I loved the most

478
00:38:03,002 --> 00:38:06,086
and whom I tried to help as much as I could,

479
00:38:06,086 --> 00:38:09,752
that's why the situation became horribly complicated."

480
00:38:12,253 --> 00:38:14,461
Depression gripped Kahlo,

481
00:38:14,461 --> 00:38:18,544
who was hospitalised for an abortion and yet more bone surgery.

482
00:38:21,002 --> 00:38:23,336
"It is getting worse every day.

483
00:38:24,002 --> 00:38:28,211
I have been so sick that I could only paint after I left the hospital,

484
00:38:29,127 --> 00:38:30,752
although without enthusiasm

485
00:38:30,752 --> 00:38:33,336
and without getting anything out of my work either.

486
00:38:35,461 --> 00:38:37,461
I have no friends here.

487
00:38:38,044 --> 00:38:39,961
I am completely alone.

488
00:38:41,336 --> 00:38:46,127
I trusted Diego would change but now I see that is impossible.

489
00:38:46,669 --> 00:38:48,669
He wants total freedom.

490
00:38:49,461 --> 00:38:53,378
He lives a full life without the emptiness of mine.

491
00:38:54,544 --> 00:38:58,544
I have nothing because I don't have him."

492
00:39:06,627 --> 00:39:10,002
She took an apartment in Mexico City for a period of time

493
00:39:10,086 --> 00:39:12,710
and she stopped wearing her Tehuana dress.

494
00:39:12,794 --> 00:39:17,585
She started wearing European clothes and she cut off her hair.

495
00:39:18,585 --> 00:39:24,127
When she was being two-timed by Rivera her paintings got a lot bloodier.

496
00:39:27,336 --> 00:39:32,544
She painted A Few Small Nips and it is one of her bloodiest paintings.

497
00:39:33,669 --> 00:39:36,044
If you look closely, you'll see little places

498
00:39:36,128 --> 00:39:38,128
where she stabbed the top of the frame.

499
00:39:39,002 --> 00:39:40,877
That painting shows

500
00:39:40,961 --> 00:39:46,169
probably a prostitute being stabbed by her boyfriend.

501
00:39:48,669 --> 00:39:51,336
This comes from a newspaper article.

502
00:39:51,336 --> 00:39:54,128
The man, according to the newspaper article, said,

503
00:39:54,128 --> 00:39:57,128
"But I only gave her a few small nips."

504
00:39:58,211 --> 00:40:00,585
She said that she had to paint it

505
00:40:00,669 --> 00:40:04,710
because she herself felt murdered by life.

506
00:40:07,461 --> 00:40:11,294
Kahlo found solace in drink and lovers.

507
00:40:14,461 --> 00:40:18,044
"I drank because I wanted to drown my sorrows

508
00:40:18,128 --> 00:40:20,585
but the bastards have learnt to swim.

509
00:40:22,169 --> 00:40:25,961
And now decency and good behaviour weary me."

510
00:40:31,544 --> 00:40:34,544
Following a number of love affairs of her own,

511
00:40:34,544 --> 00:40:37,253
Kahlo eventually reconciled with Rivera.

512
00:40:39,336 --> 00:40:41,877
Their commitment to communism remained strong,

513
00:40:41,961 --> 00:40:44,128
leading them to provide a sanctuary

514
00:40:44,128 --> 00:40:49,877
to the exiled Marxist leader Leon Trotsky at the Blue House in 1937.

515
00:40:51,044 --> 00:40:55,378
This arrangement also led to a secret and brief affair

516
00:40:55,378 --> 00:40:58,253
between Kahlo and the Russian revolutionary.

517
00:41:00,420 --> 00:41:04,211
They made light of each other's love affairs.

518
00:41:04,211 --> 00:41:06,836
He thought it was perfectly permissible for him

519
00:41:06,836 --> 00:41:09,420
to have as many affairs as he wanted.

520
00:41:09,502 --> 00:41:13,169
He didn't totally approve of Frida Kahlo having affairs.

521
00:41:13,253 --> 00:41:15,294
He didn't mind the affairs that she had with women.

522
00:41:15,378 --> 00:41:18,752
But he minded the ones that she had with men and he said,

523
00:41:18,836 --> 00:41:21,752
"I don't want to share my toothbrush with anybody."

524
00:42:04,128 --> 00:42:08,502
My Nurse and I can be interpreted biographically,

525
00:42:08,502 --> 00:42:12,669
culturally, socially and politically.

526
00:42:13,752 --> 00:42:17,336
Kahlo said that when she was eleven months old

527
00:42:17,420 --> 00:42:19,295
her sister Cristina was born

528
00:42:19,295 --> 00:42:21,336
and her mother couldn't nurse them all.

529
00:42:22,003 --> 00:42:26,794
So they sent her to a nana, to an indigenous wet nurse.

530
00:42:27,669 --> 00:42:33,961
Her sister displaces her in her mother's breasts, in her mother's arms.

531
00:42:33,961 --> 00:42:36,295
She's probably referencing

532
00:42:36,295 --> 00:42:40,378
Diego Rivera's affair with her sister Cristina.

533
00:42:41,502 --> 00:42:45,336
She says, "I always had to share love."

534
00:42:47,420 --> 00:42:53,669
I think My nurse and I shows how meticulous she was

535
00:42:55,585 --> 00:43:00,044
She learned this from her father

536
00:43:00,627 --> 00:43:04,420
because she helped him retouch photographs

537
00:43:04,502 --> 00:43:07,169
he took in his studio

538
00:43:08,420 --> 00:43:10,169
We see the details

539
00:43:10,253 --> 00:43:13,253
the carefully applied brushstrokes

540
00:43:14,336 --> 00:43:18,461
They are not passionate or messy brushstrokes

541
00:43:18,461 --> 00:43:22,211
Seldom do we see that in her art

542
00:43:22,295 --> 00:43:25,086
It's always very small

543
00:43:25,086 --> 00:43:27,461
very cared for, very detailed

544
00:43:29,086 --> 00:43:33,211
We have to remember she was bedridden for long periods

545
00:43:33,295 --> 00:43:35,295
both at home and in hospital

546
00:43:36,336 --> 00:43:39,752
She had all the time in the world to paint these pictures.

547
00:43:41,253 --> 00:43:43,461
Any Mexican looking at that painting,

548
00:43:43,461 --> 00:43:46,169
they might not know anything about Frida Kahlo's biography

549
00:43:46,253 --> 00:43:48,794
but they're going to know what the iconographic reference is.

550
00:43:48,878 --> 00:43:51,295
Because that is a Madonna and child

551
00:43:51,295 --> 00:43:53,502
and who is in the figure of Jesus Christ?

552
00:43:53,586 --> 00:43:54,711
Frida Kahlo.

553
00:43:54,711 --> 00:43:59,169
That is shocking too; to depict herself as the saviour.

554
00:43:59,253 --> 00:44:01,794
Had an artist ever done that before?

555
00:44:01,878 --> 00:44:04,253
And then the maternal source

556
00:44:04,253 --> 00:44:08,128
is not the Virgin Mary of the Western Judeo-Christian heritage,

557
00:44:08,128 --> 00:44:11,878
it is an indigenous woman, bare-breasted,

558
00:44:11,878 --> 00:44:13,544
wearing an Olmec mask -

559
00:44:13,544 --> 00:44:17,420
and the Olmecs are the mother culture of Mesoamerica.

560
00:44:22,586 --> 00:44:27,128
Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera collected pre-Colombian art.

561
00:44:27,128 --> 00:44:31,128
And both of them use pre-Colombian art in their paintings.

562
00:44:31,128 --> 00:44:34,003
It's part of the whole thing of Mexicanidad,

563
00:44:34,003 --> 00:44:37,627
of identifying with the Indian past of Mexico.

564
00:44:39,711 --> 00:44:45,170
Pre-Hispanic art was present in Diego and Frida's house

565
00:44:46,336 --> 00:44:51,544
Rivera was a visionary in the rescuing of pre-Hispanic art

566
00:44:52,461 --> 00:44:54,961
People in Mexico didn't consider them important

567
00:44:55,961 --> 00:44:59,336
But Rivera said "No, this is part of our culture...

568
00:45:00,211 --> 00:45:05,336
...we have to recover this, we have to promote it...

569
00:45:05,420 --> 00:45:07,544
...we have to conserve it."

570
00:45:07,544 --> 00:45:09,627
Diego was passionate about this

571
00:45:10,794 --> 00:45:14,420
These elements such as the pre-Hispanic pieces

572
00:45:14,502 --> 00:45:17,170
gradually entered Frida's work

573
00:45:19,794 --> 00:45:24,752
My Nurse and I was not only Frida's favourite painting

574
00:45:24,836 --> 00:45:26,794
it was also Diego Rivera's

575
00:45:27,544 --> 00:45:30,128
It's a very interesting picture

576
00:45:30,128 --> 00:45:31,336
Very stark.

577
00:45:38,961 --> 00:45:42,502
In April 1938 André Breton

578
00:45:42,586 --> 00:45:44,961
founder of the Surrealist movement in France

579
00:45:44,961 --> 00:45:47,336
came to Mexico to give lectures.

580
00:45:48,378 --> 00:45:50,586
He became fascinated with Kahlo.

581
00:46:01,586 --> 00:46:04,044
"My surprise and joy were unbounded

582
00:46:04,128 --> 00:46:06,878
when I discovered, on my arrival in Mexico,

583
00:46:06,878 --> 00:46:08,753
that her work had blossomed forth

584
00:46:08,753 --> 00:46:12,420
in her latest paintings in to pure surreality."

585
00:46:13,378 --> 00:46:14,586
André Breton.

586
00:46:33,878 --> 00:46:37,378
"They thought I was a Surrealist but I wasn't,

587
00:46:37,462 --> 00:46:39,669
I never painted dreams.

588
00:46:39,753 --> 00:46:41,961
I painted my own reality.

589
00:46:44,003 --> 00:46:47,711
I have never followed any school or anyone's influence.

590
00:46:49,295 --> 00:46:51,711
I don't expect anything from my work

591
00:46:51,711 --> 00:46:54,711
but the satisfaction that I gain from expressing

592
00:46:54,711 --> 00:46:57,502
what I could not otherwise put into words."

593
00:47:04,211 --> 00:47:07,627
When André Breton met Frida Kahlo

594
00:47:07,711 --> 00:47:10,586
and saw the painting What the Water Gave Me

595
00:47:10,586 --> 00:47:12,669
he labelled it as a Surrealist painting

596
00:47:14,544 --> 00:47:17,502
When Surrealism began in 1920

597
00:47:17,586 --> 00:47:19,836
when the first manifesto was published

598
00:47:19,836 --> 00:47:23,045
following Freud's theories very closely

599
00:47:23,045 --> 00:47:27,003
Freud said that there were four paths to projecting the unconscious

600
00:47:27,003 --> 00:47:29,003
dreaming

601
00:47:29,003 --> 00:47:31,086
drug use

602
00:47:31,170 --> 00:47:35,253
delirium caused by an illness or a fever

603
00:47:35,337 --> 00:47:37,086
and through art

604
00:47:37,170 --> 00:47:41,627
The Surrealists wanted to combine the realms of dreaming and art

605
00:47:41,711 --> 00:47:45,170
For example André Breton when he was going to bed

606
00:47:45,170 --> 00:47:47,295
would put a notebook nearby

607
00:47:47,295 --> 00:47:48,627
He would dream

608
00:47:48,711 --> 00:47:50,753
then on waking would grab the notebook

609
00:47:50,753 --> 00:47:52,961
and write down what came to him

610
00:47:54,003 --> 00:47:57,420
Frida said, "I don't paint my dreams...

611
00:47:57,502 --> 00:47:59,295
...I'm not a Surrealist...

612
00:47:59,836 --> 00:48:01,211
...I paint my memories"

613
00:48:02,586 --> 00:48:07,836
Frida Kahlo's work is what we call magical realism

614
00:48:09,086 --> 00:48:11,086
All of the images are real

615
00:48:12,544 --> 00:48:16,961
They can all be found in the real world

616
00:48:18,462 --> 00:48:20,961
All that happens is that the elements are combined

617
00:48:21,003 --> 00:48:25,128
or brought together in strange situations

618
00:48:27,961 --> 00:48:29,586
Each of the elements is a memory

619
00:48:29,586 --> 00:48:34,836
which she is seeing as though in a delirium

620
00:48:34,920 --> 00:48:37,628
while she is in the bath so you can see her feet

621
00:48:39,420 --> 00:48:42,420
Her right foot is injured

622
00:48:42,961 --> 00:48:46,045
The foot that was affected when she had polio as a child

623
00:48:46,961 --> 00:48:49,836
The foot that will be amputated towards the end of her life

624
00:48:52,753 --> 00:48:55,628
It has a fantastic effect

625
00:48:56,628 --> 00:48:59,836
So it is very close to Surrealism

626
00:48:59,920 --> 00:49:02,295
but, as she said,

627
00:49:02,295 --> 00:49:03,920
it's not surrealist.

628
00:49:08,211 --> 00:49:10,628
Kahlo is a beautiful painter.

629
00:49:10,628 --> 00:49:13,045
For somebody without a formal artistic education

630
00:49:13,045 --> 00:49:16,212
she develops a real facility for handling the medium.

631
00:49:16,212 --> 00:49:19,295
She painted as if she were painting a miniature mural.

632
00:49:19,295 --> 00:49:21,170
She would sketch out the composition

633
00:49:21,170 --> 00:49:23,170
and then she would start in one corner

634
00:49:23,170 --> 00:49:25,711
and sort of paint by numbers, work her way across.

635
00:49:26,462 --> 00:49:29,420
Then apparently she would paint with very, very fine brushes.

636
00:49:29,502 --> 00:49:30,753
If you look at them closely

637
00:49:30,753 --> 00:49:32,669
the surface is so beautifully finished

638
00:49:32,753 --> 00:49:35,045
and it's tiny, tiny little brush marks.

639
00:49:36,253 --> 00:49:41,420
She always had her brushes in a very, very specific order.

640
00:49:41,502 --> 00:49:45,878
She kept them very neat. She loved sable brushes.

641
00:49:45,878 --> 00:49:50,212
When she was at her prime you see the brushstrokes

642
00:49:50,212 --> 00:49:53,462
but very, very delicate little brushstrokes.

643
00:49:53,544 --> 00:49:57,628
People didn't understand how deliberate

644
00:49:57,628 --> 00:50:02,628
and not instantaneous or spontaneous she was.

645
00:50:07,503 --> 00:50:11,337
"I was feeling as lousy as hell when your letter arrived,

646
00:50:11,337 --> 00:50:13,628
I've been having pains in my foot all week

647
00:50:13,628 --> 00:50:16,295
and I'll probably need another operation."

648
00:50:19,003 --> 00:50:22,378
I haven't changed very much since you saw me last.

649
00:50:22,462 --> 00:50:25,462
I wear again my crazy Mexican dress,

650
00:50:25,544 --> 00:50:28,212
and I am as skinny and lazy as always,

651
00:50:28,212 --> 00:50:30,878
without enthusiasm for anything.

652
00:50:32,544 --> 00:50:34,836
I think it's because I am sick

653
00:50:34,920 --> 00:50:38,462
but of course that is only a very good pretext.

654
00:50:40,669 --> 00:50:44,003
I have painted about 12 paintings,

655
00:50:44,003 --> 00:50:46,711
all small and unimportant,

656
00:50:46,795 --> 00:50:51,295
with the same personal subjects that only appeal to me and nobody else.

657
00:50:52,586 --> 00:50:55,836
I sent four of them to a gallery here in Mexico,

658
00:50:55,920 --> 00:50:59,003
the only one that admits any kind of stuff.

659
00:51:00,045 --> 00:51:03,045
Four or five people told me they were swell,

660
00:51:03,045 --> 00:51:05,795
the rest think they are too crazy.

661
00:51:07,544 --> 00:51:10,836
To my surprise Julien Levy wrote me a letter

662
00:51:10,920 --> 00:51:13,795
saying someone had talked to him about my paintings

663
00:51:13,795 --> 00:51:18,045
and he was very interested in having an exhibition in his gallery.

664
00:51:19,920 --> 00:51:25,378
So I accepted and if nothing happens in the meantime

665
00:51:25,462 --> 00:51:27,628
I will go to New York in September."

666
00:51:34,586 --> 00:51:39,669
Frida Kahlo had only two solo exhibitions during her lifetime.

667
00:51:40,669 --> 00:51:46,087
The first one was in November 1st to 15th 1938,

668
00:51:46,087 --> 00:51:51,253
at the Julien Levy Gallery on 57th Street in New York City.

669
00:51:51,337 --> 00:51:53,795
And she showed 25 works.

670
00:51:54,544 --> 00:51:58,753
She actually was happy to have those paintings shown,

671
00:51:58,753 --> 00:52:04,711
but during her lifetime they were seen as esoteric, gruesome.

672
00:52:04,795 --> 00:52:08,586
André Breton wrote, "They're like a ribbon around a bomb."

673
00:52:09,128 --> 00:52:13,503
So that explosive nature is there but so is the ribbon,

674
00:52:13,503 --> 00:52:17,795
the beautiful colours, the luminous technique

675
00:52:17,795 --> 00:52:20,961
so there's an attraction/repulsion there.

676
00:52:21,586 --> 00:52:26,420
The Julien Levy exhibition was actually a great success.

677
00:52:26,420 --> 00:52:31,212
There were a lot of wonderful celebrities there.

678
00:52:31,212 --> 00:52:35,170
A lot of the people were contacts of Rivera,

679
00:52:35,170 --> 00:52:37,212
the bohemian art world -

680
00:52:37,212 --> 00:52:42,711
interested in her persona and her sartorial appearance

681
00:52:42,795 --> 00:52:45,128
a little bit more than in her artwork.

682
00:52:45,212 --> 00:52:50,420
But some people actually were interested in her artwork and there were sales.

683
00:52:54,212 --> 00:52:57,003
Buoyed by the recent success of New York,

684
00:52:57,087 --> 00:52:58,961
Kahlo travelled to Paris

685
00:52:59,045 --> 00:53:02,836
where her work was included in an exhibition of Mexican art.

686
00:53:09,045 --> 00:53:12,128
"There were lots of congratulations for the chica,

687
00:53:12,212 --> 00:53:14,878
among them a big hug from Miro,

688
00:53:14,878 --> 00:53:16,836
and great praises from Kandinsky;

689
00:53:17,503 --> 00:53:20,628
congratulations from Picasso, Tanguy

690
00:53:20,628 --> 00:53:22,795
and from other big shots of Surrealism.

691
00:53:31,462 --> 00:53:34,128
I think the whole thing turned out quite well."

692
00:53:36,462 --> 00:53:39,878
It was then that Frida began to sell

693
00:53:39,962 --> 00:53:43,045
to commercialise her work

694
00:53:43,045 --> 00:53:47,379
In the exhibition she had in the Julien Levy Gallery

695
00:53:47,379 --> 00:53:50,462
she sold around 12 paintings

696
00:53:51,337 --> 00:53:52,753
Paris was the turning point

697
00:53:52,753 --> 00:53:55,836
in terms of her actually having a career.

698
00:53:56,420 --> 00:53:59,462
She did get a lot of praise for her paintings

699
00:53:59,544 --> 00:54:02,920
from all these different famous artists in France.

700
00:54:02,920 --> 00:54:06,003
And the Louvre bought one of her self-portraits.

701
00:54:06,544 --> 00:54:10,544
But when Kahlo got back to Mexico from France

702
00:54:10,628 --> 00:54:13,170
things did not go well with Diego Rivera

703
00:54:13,254 --> 00:54:16,878
and he asked her for a divorce.

704
00:54:16,962 --> 00:54:18,962
Some people say it's because he realised

705
00:54:18,962 --> 00:54:23,170
that she'd had an affair with Trotsky in 1937.

706
00:54:23,254 --> 00:54:26,420
It caused her enormous unhappiness.

707
00:54:37,795 --> 00:54:41,170
"I have no words to tell you how much I have been suffering.

708
00:54:42,503 --> 00:54:45,003
And knowing how much I love Diego

709
00:54:45,087 --> 00:54:49,087
you must understand that this trouble will never end in my life.

710
00:54:50,420 --> 00:54:52,836
But after the last fight I had with him,

711
00:54:52,920 --> 00:54:57,045
I understand that for him it is much better to leave me.

712
00:54:58,420 --> 00:55:00,836
Now I feel so rotten and lonely

713
00:55:00,920 --> 00:55:03,420
that it seems to me that nobody in the world

714
00:55:03,420 --> 00:55:05,379
has to suffer the way I do."

715
00:55:09,045 --> 00:55:14,628
In September 1939 Kahlo left the marital home in San Angel

716
00:55:14,628 --> 00:55:17,711
and moved back to her childhood home in Coyoacán.

717
00:55:18,795 --> 00:55:21,045
She also turned back to drink.

718
00:55:24,003 --> 00:55:26,295
Health troubles plagued her.

719
00:55:26,379 --> 00:55:29,962
Pains in her spine and infections in her hands.

720
00:55:30,003 --> 00:55:32,795
Yet she continued to paint,

721
00:55:32,795 --> 00:55:37,337
finishing her largest canvas just as she received her divorce papers.

722
00:56:12,545 --> 00:56:15,962
"There have been two great accidents in my life.

723
00:56:16,003 --> 00:56:17,795
One was the tram...

724
00:56:17,795 --> 00:56:19,337
the other was Diego.

725
00:56:20,753 --> 00:56:23,962
Diego was by far the worst."

726
00:57:09,545 --> 00:57:14,337
The theme of this painting is her separation from Diego Rivera

727
00:57:15,045 --> 00:57:21,711
of their divorce on November 8th 1939

728
00:57:23,670 --> 00:57:25,337
The Frida dressed as a Tehuana

729
00:57:25,421 --> 00:57:27,628
is the Frida who loved Diego Rivera

730
00:57:28,212 --> 00:57:30,421
Diego is the one who asked her

731
00:57:30,503 --> 00:57:34,087
to wear outfits from different regions of Mexico

732
00:57:34,920 --> 00:57:39,503
This Frida is holding a cameo with the image of Diego Rivera

733
00:57:40,421 --> 00:57:43,421
From the cameo emerges a vein

734
00:57:43,503 --> 00:57:46,545
which runs through the heart of Frida in love

735
00:57:46,545 --> 00:57:48,628
of the Frida who loves Diego

736
00:57:48,712 --> 00:57:52,212
to the Frida with a broken heart

737
00:57:54,503 --> 00:57:57,045
And after the break-up

738
00:57:57,129 --> 00:57:59,379
Frida is more European

739
00:57:59,379 --> 00:58:02,421
with a Victorian dress that is very similar

740
00:58:02,503 --> 00:58:05,003
to the one that her mother wore for her wedding in 1898

741
00:58:06,837 --> 00:58:10,212
This painting was shown for the first time

742
00:58:10,212 --> 00:58:12,795
in the International Exhibition of Surrealism

743
00:58:12,795 --> 00:58:15,295
in Mexico in 1940

744
00:58:16,045 --> 00:58:19,045
Diego Rivera also exhibited in this exhibition

745
00:58:19,586 --> 00:58:21,878
So the rumour, the legend

746
00:58:21,962 --> 00:58:26,045
is that Frida is taking revenge for the separation from Diego

747
00:58:26,129 --> 00:58:29,795
and Frida, in revenge, decides to make a big portrait

748
00:58:31,628 --> 00:58:35,628
Here there is a change in the technique

749
00:58:35,712 --> 00:58:38,753
in the impact that she wanted the picture to have

750
00:58:39,795 --> 00:58:44,795
The sky is inspired by El Greco's View of Toledo

751
00:58:45,337 --> 00:58:47,962
Frida knew of his work through books

752
00:58:47,962 --> 00:58:51,045
and from 1938 onwards

753
00:58:51,129 --> 00:58:52,878
in various paintings

754
00:58:52,962 --> 00:58:56,170
we start to see these gloomy skies

755
00:58:56,254 --> 00:58:59,087
these skies where it's just about to rain

756
00:58:59,795 --> 00:59:01,337
In The Two Fridas

757
00:59:01,421 --> 00:59:03,421
the element that gives us

758
00:59:03,503 --> 00:59:07,170
the feeling of the suffering that Frida Kahlo is experiencing

759
00:59:07,254 --> 00:59:08,462
is the sky.

760
00:59:09,045 --> 00:59:12,004
Also the veins running through the picture

761
00:59:12,004 --> 00:59:16,004
are a recurring motif in Frida Kahlo's work

762
00:59:17,670 --> 00:59:21,045
With the veins she always ties together

763
00:59:21,545 --> 00:59:24,337
people, animals

764
00:59:24,753 --> 00:59:27,753
motifs that related to her life

765
00:59:30,212 --> 00:59:32,628
She recreates her experiences

766
00:59:33,254 --> 00:59:36,462
She reinterprets them magically, marvellously

767
00:59:38,296 --> 00:59:39,837
At the same time

768
00:59:39,837 --> 00:59:44,962
there is this dreamlike aspect which has a lot to do with fantasy

769
00:59:47,296 --> 00:59:51,296
It's a painting that we can associate with magical realism

770
00:59:52,837 --> 00:59:55,837
Frida's picture expresses it well

771
00:59:57,795 --> 00:59:59,462
If you see the skirt

772
00:59:59,462 --> 01:00:04,296
you see how the surgical scissors try to cut off the blood flow

773
01:00:05,379 --> 01:00:09,462
and the blood nevertheless ends up becoming the flowers

774
01:00:09,462 --> 01:00:12,503
which appear on the magical part of her dress

775
01:00:16,045 --> 01:00:19,795
It is not entirely like Surrealism which breaks with reality

776
01:00:19,795 --> 01:00:23,254
but reality is exalted in a moment of magic

777
01:00:26,296 --> 01:00:28,920
For that reason I consider it

778
01:00:29,004 --> 01:00:32,545
to be the most important picture in Mexican painting

779
01:00:32,545 --> 01:00:35,087
of the first half of the 20th century.

780
01:00:50,753 --> 01:00:52,337
Following her divorce

781
01:00:52,421 --> 01:00:56,879
Frida Kahlo began a prolific period of self-portrait painting.

782
01:00:58,296 --> 01:01:01,920
Of around 150 paintings in her lifetime,

783
01:01:02,004 --> 01:01:04,503
a third of them were self-portraits.

784
01:01:08,753 --> 01:01:12,212
"Since my subjects have always been my sensations,

785
01:01:12,296 --> 01:01:13,879
my state of mind

786
01:01:13,879 --> 01:01:18,129
and the profound reactions that life has been producing in me,

787
01:01:18,129 --> 01:01:23,087
I have frequently objectified all of this in portraits of myself,

788
01:01:23,171 --> 01:01:25,795
which is the most sincere and real thing

789
01:01:25,879 --> 01:01:28,587
I could do to express how I felt."

790
01:01:32,503 --> 01:01:36,462
So why did Kahlo hit upon this compositional format

791
01:01:36,462 --> 01:01:39,628
in the 1940s of the sort of three-quarter self-portrait?

792
01:01:40,962 --> 01:01:44,171
This is a period in her life where she is more homebound.

793
01:01:44,171 --> 01:01:47,337
At this point she is living at the Casa Azul now, full-time.

794
01:01:47,421 --> 01:01:50,421
But she's also having increased physical problems;

795
01:01:50,503 --> 01:01:53,421
more surgeries, more pain and so forth.

796
01:01:53,879 --> 01:01:57,545
So that limits her possibilities in terms of physical movement,

797
01:01:58,837 --> 01:02:01,587
but I also think that the three-quarter self-portrait

798
01:02:01,587 --> 01:02:03,962
must pose an artistic challenge for her.

799
01:02:04,753 --> 01:02:06,129
Her letters also indicate

800
01:02:06,129 --> 01:02:09,212
that she is intent on supporting herself as an artist,

801
01:02:09,296 --> 01:02:11,004
so that would be a format

802
01:02:11,004 --> 01:02:14,712
that would be appealing to possible art buyers.

803
01:02:19,045 --> 01:02:22,463
Frida Kahlo the artist who paints to earn a living,

804
01:02:22,545 --> 01:02:24,962
"What does she paint?" "She paints her self-portrait,"

805
01:02:24,962 --> 01:02:26,545
"Here you can have a piece of me."

806
01:02:28,503 --> 01:02:32,379
She knows her own image is a powerful one

807
01:02:32,463 --> 01:02:35,379
and that this powerful image will sell

808
01:02:35,463 --> 01:02:37,212
and allow her to evolve.

809
01:02:38,379 --> 01:02:41,087
The expression is almost always the same

810
01:02:41,171 --> 01:02:43,379
Seldom do we see her head on

811
01:02:43,463 --> 01:02:46,129
She's always three-quarters on

812
01:02:46,754 --> 01:02:49,920
It seems she likes this angle

813
01:02:51,129 --> 01:02:55,754
This is a very studied pose learned at a young age

814
01:02:56,545 --> 01:02:59,045
because being the daughter of a photographer

815
01:02:59,129 --> 01:03:01,254
her father taught her

816
01:03:01,920 --> 01:03:03,837
how to sit

817
01:03:03,837 --> 01:03:06,004
how to pose

818
01:03:06,503 --> 01:03:08,962
where to direct her eyes

819
01:03:09,712 --> 01:03:11,503
Frida doesn't smile

820
01:03:11,587 --> 01:03:14,296
seldom does she smile, even in photographs

821
01:03:17,670 --> 01:03:21,962
What changes within this series of self-portraits?

822
01:03:22,046 --> 01:03:24,795
The elements around her

823
01:03:26,754 --> 01:03:29,545
The braided crowns

824
01:03:29,545 --> 01:03:32,212
the ribbons, the flowers

825
01:03:32,296 --> 01:03:35,628
the necklaces with hair that look like roots

826
01:03:35,712 --> 01:03:37,503
that extend over her body

827
01:03:39,087 --> 01:03:41,463
She is surrounded by her dogs

828
01:03:41,545 --> 01:03:43,545
her spider monkeys

829
01:03:43,545 --> 01:03:46,962
surrounded by vegetation, butterflies

830
01:03:47,046 --> 01:03:49,254
the parrots that kept her company.

831
01:03:51,087 --> 01:03:52,587
She had a menagerie of animals;

832
01:03:53,338 --> 01:03:56,670
she does write about her pets as if they're her children,

833
01:03:56,754 --> 01:03:58,754
so it could be that they became surrogate children

834
01:03:58,754 --> 01:04:00,962
so she includes them in the portraits.

835
01:04:01,795 --> 01:04:05,087
There is some frustration that seems to be expressed

836
01:04:05,171 --> 01:04:07,962
as the kind of emotional register, the charge of those paintings.

837
01:04:08,046 --> 01:04:10,338
And, again, it is the period where

838
01:04:10,338 --> 01:04:15,212
she is spending more time in Coyoacán at the Casa Azul.

839
01:04:15,296 --> 01:04:17,129
She and Rivera have reconciled

840
01:04:17,129 --> 01:04:19,503
but apparently have an understanding

841
01:04:19,587 --> 01:04:21,338
that their relationship will be platonic.

842
01:04:23,338 --> 01:04:27,421
It's also just following the period where she had been in a relationship

843
01:04:27,503 --> 01:04:30,338
with the colour photographer Nickolas Muray

844
01:04:30,338 --> 01:04:33,421
who was a pioneer of colour advertising photography.

845
01:04:33,503 --> 01:04:36,920
He took several beautiful portraits of Frida Kahlo in colour.

846
01:04:58,421 --> 01:05:00,212
If you look at some of those portraits

847
01:05:00,296 --> 01:05:04,503
and you compare them to the colour photographs by Nickolas Muray

848
01:05:05,212 --> 01:05:08,503
there is reason to think that she is working from photographs.

849
01:05:08,587 --> 01:05:12,212
I doubt very much that she's painting from the mirror.

850
01:05:13,421 --> 01:05:16,421
In fact the Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Dead Hummingbird

851
01:05:16,503 --> 01:05:18,296
was a gift for Nickolas Muray

852
01:05:18,296 --> 01:05:22,587
and I believe that one is based on one of the photographs that he took of her.

853
01:05:26,129 --> 01:05:29,587
There's always some emotional message going on there,

854
01:05:29,587 --> 01:05:34,503
so in the Muray painting it's an image of self-sacrifice,

855
01:05:34,587 --> 01:05:40,171
sacrificing our passion for the stability of remarrying Diego Rivera.

856
01:05:40,171 --> 01:05:42,670
So maybe that's what the thorn necklace is.

857
01:05:42,754 --> 01:05:45,254
Then the dead hummingbird is an amulet of love;

858
01:05:45,338 --> 01:05:50,338
dead hummingbirds are available in traditional herbal markets in Mexico

859
01:05:50,338 --> 01:05:52,046
as amulets of love.

860
01:05:52,046 --> 01:05:55,213
So here it is hanging right in the centre of the painting.

861
01:05:57,795 --> 01:06:03,046
When you see them you feel like the artist is there with you.

862
01:06:03,046 --> 01:06:04,754
You feel like you know her.

863
01:06:05,421 --> 01:06:11,296
You feel like you can read the pain etched in her features

864
01:06:11,296 --> 01:06:13,921
or you can see something.

865
01:06:13,921 --> 01:06:17,129
She's telling you something and it's very intimate.

866
01:06:17,213 --> 01:06:22,171
I think that kind of connection is what she strove for.

867
01:06:23,296 --> 01:06:24,962
But when you look at them closely,

868
01:06:25,004 --> 01:06:26,921
you see that they're very different,

869
01:06:26,921 --> 01:06:29,379
there are subtle differences between them,

870
01:06:30,463 --> 01:06:33,296
and that each one of her portraits

871
01:06:33,296 --> 01:06:36,379
it's the same woman but it's not the same woman.

872
01:06:36,879 --> 01:06:44,463
For me, this was a key to thinking about her constructing different identities.

873
01:06:45,254 --> 01:06:47,921
She wanted to be the beautiful Botticelli woman.

874
01:06:47,921 --> 01:06:50,338
She wanted to be "La Mexicana."

875
01:06:51,921 --> 01:06:57,504
In another self-portrait that she dedicated to Leo Eloesser

876
01:06:57,504 --> 01:07:03,670
she shows herself wearing a crown of thorns around her neck,

877
01:07:03,754 --> 01:07:08,879
like a necklace - obviously alluding to Christ

878
01:07:09,545 --> 01:07:12,046
but instead of having it on her head,

879
01:07:12,046 --> 01:07:14,795
like a crown of thorns, she has a necklace of thorns.

880
01:07:16,338 --> 01:07:19,046
And instead of her colourful garb

881
01:07:19,046 --> 01:07:23,587
she wears a brown dress of a religious nun.

882
01:07:25,171 --> 01:07:30,837
She shows herself as a divided creature,

883
01:07:30,921 --> 01:07:33,879
part of her denying her carnal self

884
01:07:33,879 --> 01:07:36,213
and part of her very sensuous.

885
01:07:36,213 --> 01:07:41,754
She's wearing a hand-shaped earring, and she has flowers in her hair.

886
01:07:41,754 --> 01:07:43,837
You can almost smell the flowers.

887
01:07:46,712 --> 01:07:52,129
In these later self-portraits, especially from the 1940s,

888
01:07:52,213 --> 01:07:58,796
she also painted herself as an androgynous creature.

889
01:07:59,921 --> 01:08:02,837
She sits and she's wearing a man's suit

890
01:08:02,921 --> 01:08:06,837
and you see her transforming herself into a different self.

891
01:08:08,587 --> 01:08:12,545
Of course, queer identities, gender bending,

892
01:08:12,629 --> 01:08:17,836
all this was not something that was shown in art during her lifetime,

893
01:08:17,921 --> 01:08:19,171
at least not a lot.

894
01:08:20,462 --> 01:08:26,711
But she's showing things that are very contemporary, are very relevant today.

895
01:08:29,212 --> 01:08:33,004
I wanted to read you a quote by Alejandro Gómez Arias.

896
01:08:33,961 --> 01:08:36,504
If you remember the very first self-portrait

897
01:08:36,586 --> 01:08:39,296
that she made for Alejandro Gómez Arias

898
01:08:39,296 --> 01:08:44,129
who knew her, really, throughout her life and he wrote,

899
01:08:44,129 --> 01:08:46,836
"Who was Frida Kahlo?

900
01:08:46,921 --> 01:08:51,046
It is not possible to find an exact answer.

901
01:08:51,046 --> 01:08:57,046
So contradictory and multiple was the personality of this woman

902
01:08:57,046 --> 01:09:01,836
that it may be said that many 'Fridas' existed.

903
01:09:01,921 --> 01:09:06,254
Perhaps none of them was the one that she wanted to be."

904
01:09:09,462 --> 01:09:12,212
Aware that her spiralling health and alcoholism

905
01:09:12,296 --> 01:09:14,961
were linked to distress about Rivera,

906
01:09:15,004 --> 01:09:20,087
Kahlo's friend and doctor Leo Eloesser mediated a reconciliation.

907
01:09:21,879 --> 01:09:25,586
In December 1940, one year after their divorce,

908
01:09:25,671 --> 01:09:28,129
Kahlo and Rivera remarried.

909
01:09:30,421 --> 01:09:34,879
Rivera continued to use San Angel House as his studio

910
01:09:34,961 --> 01:09:36,545
so he was there a lot.

911
01:09:37,212 --> 01:09:39,380
She moved in to the Coyoacán house

912
01:09:39,462 --> 01:09:42,629
which Diego Rivera had bought from her father.

913
01:09:42,711 --> 01:09:45,504
And they had a very social life.

914
01:09:46,337 --> 01:09:48,921
Artists from all over the world came to the Blue House

915
01:09:48,921 --> 01:09:51,212
because it was a place of bohemia

916
01:09:51,296 --> 01:09:53,296
art, culture

917
01:09:53,380 --> 01:09:55,671
intellectual conversations

918
01:09:57,671 --> 01:10:00,004
Frida wanted to connect with people

919
01:10:00,088 --> 01:10:01,921
She wanted to be loved.

920
01:10:03,671 --> 01:10:07,254
She loved fiestas, she adored to dress up

921
01:10:07,338 --> 01:10:11,380
and they had parties and drank a lot of tequila,

922
01:10:11,380 --> 01:10:13,421
I mean she drank a lot of tequila.

923
01:10:17,213 --> 01:10:19,296
"The remarriage functions well,

924
01:10:19,380 --> 01:10:21,629
a small quantity of quarrels,

925
01:10:21,629 --> 01:10:24,587
better mutual understanding on my part

926
01:10:24,671 --> 01:10:27,671
and fewer investigations of the tedious kind

927
01:10:27,671 --> 01:10:29,879
with respect to other women.

928
01:10:31,129 --> 01:10:33,213
I have learnt that life is this way.

929
01:10:34,837 --> 01:10:37,338
If I felt better health-wise...

930
01:10:37,338 --> 01:10:40,171
I would say I am happy."

931
01:10:45,254 --> 01:10:49,255
During the '40s she had a number of surgical operations.

932
01:10:49,837 --> 01:10:54,213
I've always thought that she had a little bit of Munchausen Syndrome

933
01:10:54,213 --> 01:10:59,796
and just wanted to have operations in order to get attention from Rivera,

934
01:10:59,796 --> 01:11:02,129
and from everybody.

935
01:11:02,213 --> 01:11:04,380
She wanted to be focused on

936
01:11:04,380 --> 01:11:07,671
and having an operation is a good way to get focused on.

937
01:11:08,712 --> 01:11:14,171
But she also painted the pain that resulted from these operations

938
01:11:14,255 --> 01:11:17,046
and from having to have orthopaedic corsets,

939
01:11:17,046 --> 01:11:19,837
which she said were a complete misery for her.

940
01:12:22,088 --> 01:12:24,796
In The Broken Column

941
01:12:24,796 --> 01:12:28,380
Frida shows us her bravery when facing pain

942
01:12:29,380 --> 01:12:32,963
It's a self-portrait where on the one hand

943
01:12:32,963 --> 01:12:39,255
she shows the pain represented by the nails all over her body

944
01:12:41,712 --> 01:12:45,546
The spine completely fragmented, cracked

945
01:12:46,504 --> 01:12:49,380
But it's not represented as a backbone

946
01:12:49,380 --> 01:12:54,879
rather as an Ionic classical column used in construction

947
01:12:54,963 --> 01:12:58,380
which should give support but seems not to

948
01:12:58,380 --> 01:13:02,463
even though the top of the column supports the chin

949
01:13:03,671 --> 01:13:09,255
This is where we see Frida's bravery when facing this pain

950
01:13:09,255 --> 01:13:13,754
because even when her face is full of tears

951
01:13:13,838 --> 01:13:16,171
her attitude towards the viewer is defiant

952
01:13:16,255 --> 01:13:19,088
She doesn't cry with a pained expression

953
01:13:19,088 --> 01:13:23,754
Tears come from her eyes, roll down her face

954
01:13:23,838 --> 01:13:26,338
but the expression is not one of suffering

955
01:13:26,338 --> 01:13:29,879
It's almost a challenge to the viewer

956
01:13:31,171 --> 01:13:36,587
She paints these desert landscapes fragmented, cracked

957
01:13:36,671 --> 01:13:39,963
that give us a sense of desperation

958
01:13:39,963 --> 01:13:41,921
like there is nothing more

959
01:13:42,796 --> 01:13:45,046
The colours are also important

960
01:13:45,629 --> 01:13:49,921
In this case the horizon is green

961
01:13:50,422 --> 01:13:52,754
Green for Frida is hope

962
01:13:53,838 --> 01:13:58,546
So even though we see her in great pain

963
01:13:58,546 --> 01:14:01,296
and imagine that the most important thing is the pain

964
01:14:01,380 --> 01:14:04,712
at the same time Frida tells us that

965
01:14:04,796 --> 01:14:07,422
behind this pain there is great hope.

966
01:14:09,296 --> 01:14:11,963
Why did Frida use her body so much?

967
01:14:12,004 --> 01:14:14,255
Her broken spine, for example?

968
01:14:15,463 --> 01:14:18,422
It was precisely at that time when

969
01:14:18,504 --> 01:14:21,004
she was advised to use the steel corsets

970
01:14:21,088 --> 01:14:23,587
which must have been dreadful

971
01:14:24,504 --> 01:14:27,546
So the body is sublimated

972
01:14:28,921 --> 01:14:32,380
It's not sexualised in Kahlo's work

973
01:14:33,587 --> 01:14:35,754
So that's the point

974
01:14:35,838 --> 01:14:38,921
We think of our bodies when our bodies hurt

975
01:14:38,921 --> 01:14:41,422
Otherwise not at all.

976
01:14:43,422 --> 01:14:46,213
What I find interesting

977
01:14:46,213 --> 01:14:50,422
is how this physically fractured woman

978
01:14:51,213 --> 01:14:54,004
tormented by her body

979
01:14:54,587 --> 01:14:57,255
by her obsession of not being able to become pregnant

980
01:14:59,046 --> 01:15:01,713
and with all that, she paints

981
01:15:01,713 --> 01:15:06,546
How she overcomes and mitigates her pain

982
01:15:06,546 --> 01:15:09,713
and her physical condition through her painting

983
01:15:12,005 --> 01:15:14,171
So when she paints obvious things

984
01:15:14,255 --> 01:15:18,171
like The Broken Column

985
01:15:19,213 --> 01:15:21,754
she does it with great devotion

986
01:15:21,838 --> 01:15:23,838
like an escape

987
01:15:24,504 --> 01:15:26,921
searching for the beauty

988
01:15:27,879 --> 01:15:30,255
that she can't find in her physical being.

989
01:15:42,546 --> 01:15:45,546
Frida Kahlo painted and drew in her diary

990
01:15:45,546 --> 01:15:47,754
in the last ten years of her life.

991
01:15:49,213 --> 01:15:51,504
The diary drawings and self-portraits

992
01:15:51,504 --> 01:15:56,046
are very fluid, very sketchy, kind of wild and very surreal.

993
01:15:56,130 --> 01:16:00,130
Which is interesting because all of her oil portraits were so precise.

994
01:16:01,088 --> 01:16:06,297
It was also a place where she could write about her need for Rivera.

995
01:16:06,297 --> 01:16:08,713
She talks about her love for him.

996
01:16:10,046 --> 01:16:12,671
She also talks about politics.

997
01:16:13,963 --> 01:16:17,838
Yes, it describes her deepest thoughts

998
01:16:17,838 --> 01:16:20,422
her intellectual concerns

999
01:16:20,504 --> 01:16:23,005
but it is a work of art

1000
01:16:24,671 --> 01:16:28,796
It is a representation of her because she was visual

1001
01:16:30,171 --> 01:16:32,171
It's very intimate

1002
01:16:32,255 --> 01:16:35,380
She didn't think that anyone was going to see it

1003
01:16:36,713 --> 01:16:40,297
She is making connections while also writing poetry

1004
01:16:40,297 --> 01:16:43,546
and reflecting her influences

1005
01:16:45,088 --> 01:16:47,879
The diary is how she understands herself

1006
01:16:47,963 --> 01:16:51,130
Above all it demonstrates the complexity

1007
01:16:51,130 --> 01:16:54,713
but also the big ideas and originality of Frida

1008
01:16:56,463 --> 01:17:00,671
There is such a beautiful phrase that describes her house, her life

1009
01:17:01,338 --> 01:17:03,796
"The whole universe, the world, Mexico"

1010
01:17:06,130 --> 01:17:09,754
The Blue House is the intimate world of Frida Kahlo

1011
01:17:09,838 --> 01:17:12,504
its colours, its cuisine

1012
01:17:13,380 --> 01:17:17,422
its Mexican aromas, its vegetation

1013
01:17:19,005 --> 01:17:22,046
It is a microcosm of Mexico.

1014
01:17:25,963 --> 01:17:28,338
While Kahlo became increasingly imprisoned

1015
01:17:28,422 --> 01:17:30,255
by her disabilities,

1016
01:17:30,255 --> 01:17:32,713
Rivera continued to use his freedom

1017
01:17:32,713 --> 01:17:36,422
to have very public affairs with film stars and celebrities.

1018
01:17:37,546 --> 01:17:39,754
As her physical world diminished

1019
01:17:39,838 --> 01:17:43,713
Kahlo created ever more complex worlds on her canvases.

1020
01:17:44,546 --> 01:17:48,130
The dominant theme remained her love for Diego.

1021
01:18:41,464 --> 01:18:46,546
The Love Embrace of the Universe, the Earth (Mexico),

1022
01:18:46,546 --> 01:18:51,088
Diego, and Me, and Mr Xolotl.

1023
01:18:51,838 --> 01:18:53,963
It kind of describes what you see there.

1024
01:18:55,255 --> 01:18:59,338
The general composition is the yin and yang.

1025
01:18:59,880 --> 01:19:04,671
You have a division of Earth and sky,

1026
01:19:04,671 --> 01:19:06,464
male and female,

1027
01:19:07,504 --> 01:19:10,796
and you have the Sun and the Moon.

1028
01:19:10,880 --> 01:19:13,838
And the Sun is the colours of the night sky,

1029
01:19:13,838 --> 01:19:15,963
and the Moon is the colours of the daylight sky,

1030
01:19:15,963 --> 01:19:18,546
so it's about balance.

1031
01:19:18,546 --> 01:19:22,213
It's very much impacted and influenced

1032
01:19:22,297 --> 01:19:25,297
by Hinduism and Daoism and Buddhism,

1033
01:19:25,297 --> 01:19:31,963
so at that time she is very immersed in this idea of the yin-yang.

1034
01:19:34,504 --> 01:19:39,213
It's infused by autobiographical elements,

1035
01:19:39,297 --> 01:19:43,213
by pre-Hispanic mythologies,

1036
01:19:43,297 --> 01:19:48,255
Christian imagery and Hindu symbolism.

1037
01:19:48,755 --> 01:19:55,755
Altogether it creates this concept of a series of embraces.

1038
01:19:56,338 --> 01:20:00,422
One of the quotes that I love from her is where she says,

1039
01:20:00,504 --> 01:20:03,464
"Love is the basis of all life,"

1040
01:20:03,546 --> 01:20:10,255
It is a kind of desire for life, even though there is some pain there.

1041
01:20:12,546 --> 01:20:14,588
The Christian element is very clear

1042
01:20:14,588 --> 01:20:18,213
because it looks like the Madonna and Child and Saint Anne,

1043
01:20:18,297 --> 01:20:19,629
and she knew that.

1044
01:20:20,963 --> 01:20:25,880
The Earth goddess, if you will, the Earth is very Mexican.

1045
01:20:25,880 --> 01:20:28,255
She has cacti as her hair

1046
01:20:28,255 --> 01:20:32,629
and you see the vegetation is very much Mexican.

1047
01:20:32,713 --> 01:20:38,713
She also has a cracked-open breast, with milk coming out,

1048
01:20:39,629 --> 01:20:45,297
and she embraces Frida Kahlo who is a beautiful Tehuana woman

1049
01:20:45,297 --> 01:20:50,380
but also with a wound or a pain.

1050
01:20:50,464 --> 01:20:55,921
Frida Kahlo holds Diego Rivera as a baby in her hands.

1051
01:20:57,297 --> 01:21:00,588
What's really interesting is that he has a third eye -

1052
01:21:00,588 --> 01:21:06,172
again her interest in Shiva and Hindu symbolism.

1053
01:21:06,172 --> 01:21:10,255
He holds a flame near his loins,

1054
01:21:10,339 --> 01:21:14,005
which is the lingam, which is his phallus, if you will.

1055
01:21:15,796 --> 01:21:20,880
They're also Shiva and Parvati, the Godhead,

1056
01:21:20,880 --> 01:21:25,255
the man and the woman that are part of Hinduism.

1057
01:21:25,838 --> 01:21:30,213
Of course, after she could not be his wife

1058
01:21:30,297 --> 01:21:32,963
and could not bear his child,

1059
01:21:33,047 --> 01:21:36,297
their relationship kind of morphed into

1060
01:21:37,130 --> 01:21:40,297
them babying each other and being together.

1061
01:21:42,504 --> 01:21:45,339
The last is Mr Xolotl.

1062
01:21:46,464 --> 01:21:51,172
Xolotl is the Nahuatl dog-shaped god,

1063
01:21:51,172 --> 01:21:53,796
a deity that guards the underworld.

1064
01:21:55,880 --> 01:21:59,796
So you have love and death.

1065
01:21:59,880 --> 01:22:02,255
You have night and day.

1066
01:22:02,339 --> 01:22:03,755
You have Moon and Sun.

1067
01:22:03,755 --> 01:22:06,546
You have female and male,

1068
01:22:06,630 --> 01:22:11,755
all the opposites coming together in this series of embraces.

1069
01:22:18,546 --> 01:22:21,796
Kahlo underwent an increasing number of surgeries

1070
01:22:21,880 --> 01:22:25,464
including an unsuccessful bone graft operation on her back.

1071
01:22:26,755 --> 01:22:29,297
She spent most of 1950 in hospital,

1072
01:22:29,297 --> 01:22:31,297
becoming addicted to morphine.

1073
01:22:34,546 --> 01:22:37,130
She was taking a tremendous amount of drugs

1074
01:22:37,214 --> 01:22:38,963
towards the end of her life.

1075
01:22:39,047 --> 01:22:41,339
Demerol seemed to be her favourite one.

1076
01:22:42,005 --> 01:22:45,255
And she lacked control a lot of the time.

1077
01:22:45,963 --> 01:22:48,796
When she painted she could only paint for a short while,

1078
01:22:48,880 --> 01:22:50,963
tied into her wheelchair.

1079
01:22:51,047 --> 01:22:54,255
She was supported, I think, by tying herself to the back.

1080
01:22:55,880 --> 01:23:00,297
In 1951 she painted a portrait of Dr Farill,

1081
01:23:00,297 --> 01:23:02,838
who was her orthopaedic doctor.

1082
01:23:03,504 --> 01:23:07,838
And there she holds the third palette that she ever painted,

1083
01:23:07,922 --> 01:23:10,088
which is shaped like her heart.

1084
01:23:11,130 --> 01:23:13,963
So we had three palettes in her oeuvre.

1085
01:23:14,047 --> 01:23:19,130
We had the first one, 1931, Diego Rivera holds it.

1086
01:23:19,214 --> 01:23:24,380
He is the painter; she is his little demure Mexican wife.

1087
01:23:24,464 --> 01:23:27,464
Then, after she loses her hope of being a mother,

1088
01:23:27,546 --> 01:23:31,963
she grows a third arm and she is born an artist.

1089
01:23:32,713 --> 01:23:36,713
Then in 1951, just three years before her death,

1090
01:23:36,713 --> 01:23:40,464
she holds a palette that is a heart.

1091
01:23:40,546 --> 01:23:45,339
Her paintbrushes are dripping with blood.

1092
01:23:49,713 --> 01:23:52,880
Kahlo's first and last solo exhibition

1093
01:23:52,880 --> 01:23:57,214
in her home country took place in April 1953.

1094
01:23:58,755 --> 01:24:00,630
Aware that she was deteriorating,

1095
01:24:00,630 --> 01:24:05,671
Diego Rivera and some of Kahlo's friends organised an exhibition of her work.

1096
01:24:06,755 --> 01:24:10,255
Kahlo was too ill to be moved from her bed.

1097
01:24:10,339 --> 01:24:13,172
As per her doctor's orders she stayed there,

1098
01:24:13,172 --> 01:24:17,422
but had the bed moved from her house to the gallery for the opening night.

1099
01:24:18,671 --> 01:24:21,546
Her arrival delighted friends and journalists

1100
01:24:21,630 --> 01:24:23,713
who had gathered in the gallery

1101
01:24:23,797 --> 01:24:26,963
and the exhibition was a resounding success.

1102
01:24:30,588 --> 01:24:36,963
Frida Kahlo died at the Casa Azul on the 13th of July 1954.

1103
01:24:38,130 --> 01:24:39,505
She was 47.

1104
01:24:52,505 --> 01:24:56,047
"I am always afraid that I will get tired of painting.

1105
01:24:57,422 --> 01:25:02,588
But this is the truth; I am still passionate about it.

1106
01:25:04,797 --> 01:25:07,172
Painting completed my life.

1107
01:25:10,214 --> 01:25:13,214
I lost three children and a series of other things

1108
01:25:13,214 --> 01:25:15,963
that would have fulfilled my horrible life,

1109
01:25:19,005 --> 01:25:22,880
but my painting took place of all of this.

1110
01:25:44,422 --> 01:25:47,505
Frida painted her life,

1111
01:25:47,505 --> 01:25:51,381
her pain, her political attitude.

1112
01:25:51,381 --> 01:25:55,588
I don't think she would have ever liked to be caged into a style.

1113
01:25:55,588 --> 01:25:59,588
She's going to be very important in the history of painting

1114
01:25:59,588 --> 01:26:05,339
for being this free spirit that was not blocked into a period of painting

1115
01:26:05,339 --> 01:26:09,214
or a form of painting or being in vogue.

1116
01:26:10,464 --> 01:26:12,838
Her work transcends time.

1117
01:26:13,630 --> 01:26:17,005
I can only think of Rembrandt and Van Gogh

1118
01:26:17,089 --> 01:26:22,297
whose self-portraiture moves beyond being a portrait of themselves

1119
01:26:22,381 --> 01:26:26,339
and moves on to being a portrait of the human condition.

1120
01:26:27,464 --> 01:26:29,880
She provides a visual vocabulary

1121
01:26:29,880 --> 01:26:35,339
where pain, trauma, human emotions becomes communicable.

1122
01:26:36,005 --> 01:26:39,546
The paintings she painted that deal with issues like

1123
01:26:39,630 --> 01:26:45,214
the female body and disability and gender fluidity and identity;

1124
01:26:45,755 --> 01:26:49,546
those are the things that interest people in 2020

1125
01:26:49,630 --> 01:26:54,422
but she already dealt with them in such a deep way during her lifetime.

1126
01:26:55,339 --> 01:26:58,630
I think that Kahlo is very important for the story of Mexican art.

1127
01:26:58,630 --> 01:27:01,172
She is, in many ways, a unique artist.

1128
01:27:01,172 --> 01:27:04,047
Her reputation has stood the test of time,

1129
01:27:04,047 --> 01:27:05,546
for reasons that make sense

1130
01:27:05,630 --> 01:27:08,797
and for some that are about popular celebrity that are problematic.

1131
01:27:10,255 --> 01:27:15,381
There may be at different moments resentments about Fridamania,

1132
01:27:15,381 --> 01:27:18,297
this idolising and deification of Frida Kahlo

1133
01:27:18,381 --> 01:27:20,797
in a way that obscures her art.

1134
01:27:21,880 --> 01:27:26,172
She's given me strength to overcome my fear of painting

1135
01:27:27,297 --> 01:27:31,339
To have the courage to paint without fear, without censorship

1136
01:27:32,588 --> 01:27:35,588
That is the courage I took from Frida

1137
01:27:36,381 --> 01:27:39,422
To believe in art there aren't any rules

1138
01:27:39,422 --> 01:27:41,464
In art there isn't any censorship

1139
01:27:41,546 --> 01:27:44,172
You make your own freedom

1140
01:27:44,256 --> 01:27:46,630
Because when there is censorship

1141
01:27:47,505 --> 01:27:49,339
you might as well not paint anything.