Kahlo in Berlin

Frida Kahlo has become something of a universal phenomenon. Admirers of her art see her as a strong woman and passionate lover, an unconventional artist and a steady fighter for justice and women's rights.

Comprising over 150 paintings and drawings, the retrospective in Berlin's Martin-Gropius-Bau is the largest Frida Kahlo-exhibition ever to be shown in Germany, for the first time combining the two largest collections of her work.

Compiling the extensive show took three years of hard work. "It was a major challenge right until the end," said the exhibition's curator Helga Priegnitz-Poda. "Frida Kahlo's works are rare. Most collectors possess just one of her works from which they are reluctant to part."

While pop star Madonna, a Kahlo collector, could not be persuaded to contribute to the Berlin exhibition, many other private collectors did. "But some wanted to remain anonymous," Martin-Gropius-Bau director Gereon Sievernich said.

A life marred by pain

The daughter of a German father and a mother of Mexican Indian decent, Frida Kahlo was born in Coyoacan, Mexico, on July 6, 1907. She later claimed she had been born in 1910 - not out of vanity but to associate herself with the Mexican Revolution, which began that year. The large-scale Berlin retrospective serves as a symbolic centennial.

Calamity and pain left a deep mark on Frida Kahlo's short life and her art.

At the age of 18, she was crippled in a bus accident. She spent over a year in bed recovering from fractures to her spine, collarbone and ribs, a shattered pelvis, and shoulder and foot injuries. She would endure more than 30 operations over the course of her life.

During her convalescence she began to paint.

At 22, Kahlo married the famous Mexican muralist Diego Rivera who was 20 years her senior. Their stormy, passionate relationship survived infidelities, divorce, remarriage, Kahlo's lesbian affairs, her poor health and her inability to have children.

"I suffered two grave accidents in my life," Kahlo once said. "One in which a streetcar knocked me down, and the other was Diego."

Portraits of loneliness

Many of Frida Kahlo's paintings were self-portraits. With slim, sable brushes she rendered the bold unibrow and moustache which became her trademark. In Kahlo's later years, she also painted occasional still lifes behind which self-portraits were hidden.

"She painted herself because she felt very alone and depressed," said Priegnitz-Poda. "She often gave her paintings away to friends with a note: 'So that you won't forget me.'"

In all her self-portraits she makes direct contact with the beholder, demanding that they engage in dialogue with her. "It is this inner dialogue with Frida which fascinates people around the world," the curator said. "Her gaze, which magically seems to be coming closer to us, makes almost everyone feel closely connected to her."

Despite all the hardship in her life, Kahlo liked to enjoy life. She dressed up in colorful folk costumes and made herself beautiful in order to be with friends. In addition to the theatrical changes of costume, Kahlo also encrypted her works through iconography, in order to challenge or even to mislead the viewer who attempts to understand her pictures.

"Her pictures also contain as yet completely undiscovered aspects: humorous images, satires and caricatures," said the curator.

Occasionally, Kahlo provoked people who had commissioned pictures from her. In a picture for the dining room of the Mexican President, Kahlo depicted a hollow pumpkin. Priegnitz-Poda explained that "this amounted to a veiled insult to the office of president, since in Spanish a hollow pumpkin means a jackass."

Private photo collection

In order to separate her biography from her work, but also grant the visitor insights into the artist's life, the retrospective is supplemented by an extensive collection of photographs belonging to the Kahlo family and their friends.

They show scenes from different phases in the life of this exceptional Mexican artist: Frida as a young girl, Frida with her husband Rivera, Frida lying in bed painting her plaster corset, Frida with magnificent jewelry and a confident gaze.

"The phenomenon Frida Kahlo is an intensive mixture between her biography and her work," said the artist's grandniece, Cristina Kahlo, who curated the photography portion of the exhibition. "But because her life story was so wildly interesting, her artistic work sometimes disappeared in the background."

The Frida Kahlo retrospective in the Martin-Gropius-Bau in Berlin runs through August 9, 2010.

Author: Peter Zimmermann

Editor: Kate Bowen