The Errant Æsthete

Kahlo’s “Me and My Parrots” (1941).

Few artists have captured the public’s imagination with the force of Frida Kahlo (1907–1954). In celebration of the 100th anniversary of the birth of this Mexican artist and to recognize her powerful influence on artists working today, the Walker staged a major exhibition of Kahlo’s paintings in Minneapolis (October 27, 2007–January 20, 2008), before beginning a U.S. tour.

Peter Schjeldahl’s in this week’s New Yorker, perfectly captures this most painfully personal of artists :

“…her pansexual charisma, shadowed by tales of ghastly physical and emotional suffering, makes her an avatar of liberty and guts. However, Kahlo’s eminence wobbles unless her work holds up. A retrospective at the Walker Art Center, in Minneapolis, proves that it does, and then some. She made some iffy symbological pictures and a few perfectly awful ones—forgivably, given their service to her always imperilled morale—but her self-portraits cannot be overpraised. They are sui generis in art while collegial with great portraiture of every age. Kahlo is among the winnowed elect of twentieth-century painters who will never be absent for long from the mental museums of future artists.”