On Frida Kahlo, etc.
Dear Comrades in Art Studies,
Our last class meeting, Comrade Mike discussed "cultural (mis)appropriation" with examples from Coachella style. You know, accessorizing with American Indian feathered warbonnets and Hindu bindi, etc. This isn't really such a serious matter unless one thinks about globalization and its homogenizing effect on culture and promotion of historic ammesia regarding oppression. (Even genocide--because we're all happy now enjoying the same things, aren't we?) I remembered Mike's report yesterday when I saw a lifestyle advertorial on Frida Kahlo, described as "[a] stylish woman who makes choices that are no one else’s but her own." And, wow, you can now buy her look at Cinderella!!! Appropriation alert, comrades.
Frida Kahlo, as we discussed her in class, is an example of how important some artists' lives are in understanding their work. Yes, she was a "style icon" who made it to the cover of Vogue 1937 but it was also because she was "discovered" while accompanying her husband Diego Rivera in New York. He got fired from the Rockefeller mural for his politics but she was a breath of exotic fresh air. Frida was a strong and brave woman who, like many great artists, appropriated all over the place. Her style was a personal negotiation of the things that shaped her life: her European and Mexican heritages, the indigenous culture Diego espoused, the childhood polio (hence the long skirts), the terrible bus accident at 18, etc.
Style can be a great thing as a form of self-expression. But it doesn't do Frida justice to ignore the things that went into hers. She was also an activist whose last public appearance in July 1954 (she died July 13 that same year) was at a rally condemning CIA involvement in Guatemala. The advert also failed to mention that beneath all her finery, Frida had to wear a plaster corset to support her spine for most of her life. On it, she drew monkeys and streetcars and fetuses etc.--images she employed in her deeply personal work--as well as, consistently, a hammer and sickle. Now THAT you can't buy.
It's been a wonderful sem, me hearties, and I'm sorry that it has to end with the inevitable exam (see below).
Love,
Sofia
Frida Kahlo, as we discussed her in class, is an example of how important some artists' lives are in understanding their work. Yes, she was a "style icon" who made it to the cover of Vogue 1937 but it was also because she was "discovered" while accompanying her husband Diego Rivera in New York. He got fired from the Rockefeller mural for his politics but she was a breath of exotic fresh air. Frida was a strong and brave woman who, like many great artists, appropriated all over the place. Her style was a personal negotiation of the things that shaped her life: her European and Mexican heritages, the indigenous culture Diego espoused, the childhood polio (hence the long skirts), the terrible bus accident at 18, etc.
Style can be a great thing as a form of self-expression. But it doesn't do Frida justice to ignore the things that went into hers. She was also an activist whose last public appearance in July 1954 (she died July 13 that same year) was at a rally condemning CIA involvement in Guatemala. The advert also failed to mention that beneath all her finery, Frida had to wear a plaster corset to support her spine for most of her life. On it, she drew monkeys and streetcars and fetuses etc.--images she employed in her deeply personal work--as well as, consistently, a hammer and sickle. Now THAT you can't buy.
It's been a wonderful sem, me hearties, and I'm sorry that it has to end with the inevitable exam (see below).
Love,
Sofia
Posted by the webmonster at
11:13 PM
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