Frida Kahlo, beyond appearances, an unusual exhibition honouring the legendary Mexican artist, who invites us to explore her intimacy to understand how she built her identity through the way she presented and represented herself, debuted last week at the Paris Fashion Museum, formerly known as Palais Galliera.
see also: Frida Kahlo's fashion is on display at the Paris Fashion Museum
Frida Kahlo (1907–1954) used traditional dress as a statement of her Mexican identity and as a means of better coping with her infirmity, according to the curatorial strategy put out by this extended artistic tour in this palace in the global capital of fashion.
That is the painter, who dressed out of the ordinary to show her personality and to conceal, for instance, a leg injury caused by childhood polio.
He began wearing traditional Mexican clothing at the age of 20 and continued to do so for the rest of his life. These clothes were associated with Tehuantepec's matriarchal culture and featured embroidered blouses, long skirts, and elaborate hairstyles. The exhibition, which is being presented for the first time in France in partnership with the Frida Kahlo Museum, brings together more than 200 items from the Blue House, where Frida was born and raised. These items include apparel, accessories, letters, cosmetics, medications, and orthopaedic devices.
These personal belongings were sealed by the artist's spouse, the Mexican muralist Diego Rivera, when she passed away in 1954, and weren't rediscovered until 2004—50 years later.
This priceless collection, which consists of hand-painted corsets, prostheses, pre-Columbian necklaces that Frida used to gather, traditional Tehuana skirts, and more, is displayed alongside the artist's films and photographs to create a visual biography of her amazing life.
Frida had a major accident when she was 18 and then started devoting herself to painting. She was the daughter of a woman of mixed Spanish and indigenous descent and of a German émigré who worked as a photographer for the Mexican government. She then starts dressing according to custom in your nation. The goal of the exhibition is to show how the artist developed her image—"an image that was virtually a manifesto that expressed her cultural history, as well as her experience of being a woman and of having a disability," according to the organisers.
Frida Kahlo is displayed at the Paris Fashion Museum.
The Blue House, which Kahlo's parents had decorated in the European style that was popular at the time, and which Frida and Diego renovated by painting the grey walls a bright blue and filling the house with objects that reflected his attachment to all, are just a few of the topics covered in the exhibition at the Palais Galliera, which is organised through various exhibition halls.
The final nucleus of the tour, "Frida and contemporary fashion," examines how contemporary designers such as Alexander McQueen, Jean Paul Gaultier, Karl Lagerfeld for Chanel, Riccardo Tisci for Givenchy, Maria Grazia Chiuri for Dior, and Rei Kawakubo for Comme des Garçons have drawn inspiration from and been influenced by Frida Kahlo.
The exhibition at the Palais Galliera carries on the journey that was begun between 2012 and 2014 in Mexico, and was later deployed in 2018 at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, while providing a fresh perspective on the life of this artist whose charisma and incredible style continue to enthral.
The exhibition "Frida Kahlo, beyond appearances," organised by Circe Henestrosa, Miren Arzalluz, and Gannit Ankori, will be on view at the Palais Galliera in Paris through March 5, 2023.
