Artists Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera's Mexico City Christine Delsol - SFGate
go to original October 9, 2015

Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera (Telva)

In Mexico, artists Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera were the Brangelina of their time, instantly recognizable, immensely talented, eccentric and acquainted with all the best people. One major difference, though: While Rivera was already an internationally known artist when he and Frida met, Kahlo toiled in his shadow, known primarily as Rivera's fascinating but ultimately strange little wife, not considered a "real" artist.

Rivera's paintings were enormous, as were his subjects — the injustices dealt to indigenous people and the common laborer, the corruption of politics, the history of civilization itself. Kahlo, on the other hand, was driven by personal demons: disfigurement, miscarriage, sexual betrayal, unrelenting physical pain. Her subjects were considered unworthy of great art, and she had only one solo exhibition in Mexico (though there had been a few in the United States and Europe) during her lifetime. She arrived at the October 1953 opening by ambulance and attended lying flat on her back in bed; nine months later she was dead, at age 47.

Fast-forward to the early '80s, when Kahlo would have still been in her 70s had she lived. The feminist movement is in full flower and the Neomexicanismo art movement's somewhat surreal, postmodern version of social realism, filtered through Mexican tradition, has taken hold. Frida Kahlo suddenly is a rock star.

Her light hasn't dimmed in the intervening 30 years. Mexico City, so slow to embrace her, is infused with Frida Kahlo today — her image, her art, her quotes, her favorite haunts — every bit as much as it is with her iconic husband. To visit Mexico City is to see the world through her pain, her passion for Mexican folklore and her appreciation of the natural world's beauty.

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