Most of the attendees are standing. The tension is felt, contagious. The process progresses until the bustle dissolves into absolute silence. A few seconds pass, the time necessary for the blow of the hammer to determine the end: Frida and the Diego who occupies her mind, have passed into the hands of Eduardo Francisco Constantini, founder of the Museum of Latin American Art of Buenos Aires (MALBA).
For some, the 34.9 million dollars paid for the Argentine art collection speak of a kind of restitution, something like a reaffirmation that comes after more than five decades of fighting for a place that has not yet materialized: Great artist or Pop icon? Innate talent or Rivera’s influence? Surrealist? Proudly Mexican?
For fans of the painter, the hammer from Sotheby’s served as the final blow. It fell like the scenographic goal that decides the victory.
“Diego and I” from 1949 was one of Kahlo’s last bust self-portraits. Small (30 x 22.4 cm), but monumental in discourse, the painting is a manifesto of the artist’s obsession with Rivera and the emotional martyrdom that, by then, went beyond the limits of the soul and adhered to the body, with the firm purpose of decimating and corroding it.
It is possible to affirm that the forcefulness of the image of a damaged and tearful Frida is due to the sensitive quality of self-observation of its executor. You just have to see it: the painting hurts, it makes us participants, almost accomplices, in the lament of a woman who perceives and judges herself with an honesty that borders on the uncomfortable. Like many beings, the creator clung to circumstances and lived them until death appeared to her in the attempt to survive. Perhaps that is why the artist was never enthusiastic about André Bretón aligning her to the interior of the surrealist side: my paintings are not dreams, she affirmed – perhaps wanting to state otherwise – they are pure life. Are my life.
It would have been interesting to witness the reaction of Frida Kahlo in the face of the overwhelming positioning of her work in the markets, to hear her opinion on fridomania, which the singer Madonna promoted so well and managed to stamp her face on as many t-shirts as the famous face of Che Guevara . Shadowed by the enormous figure of Diego, confused between political factions, relationships —almost always uneven and inconvenient— and limited to a creative environment, mostly male, Frida has always implied more myth than certainty.
A few days before the commemoration of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, the life and work of Frida Kahlo should be reconsidered, re-read. Be the object of new reflections and deeper interpretations. Is Frida being vindicated? Rescued from the place of victim and pain that history has conferred on her?
I dare say not yet. As long as gender violence prevails in Mexico and more than eleven femicides are committed a day, there is no room for claims.
Reference-www.eleconomista.com.mx