The surrealists claimed her as their own,but,while she was happy to participate in their exhibitions to expose her work,she denied being one of them,saying they painted what they dreamed;she painted what she saw. She did,however,bequeath them a more engaging definition than their pedantic leader,Andre Breton,ever managed:“Surrealism is the magical surprise of finding a lion in a wardrobe where one is sure of finding shirts.”
Like Dali,her public persona was a conscious extension of her art,although in her case the ostentatious clothing and jewellery disguised her debilities. Despite these,she was renowned for her (often uncensored) wit,as when she met automotive magnate Henry Ford,a renowned anti-Semite,and asked,“Mr Ford,are you Jewish?”
The writer Carlos Fuentes memorably described her as “a broken Cleopatra”,and she savoured her ability to attract lovers of both sexes. Although Rivera didn’t mind the female ones,he hated the men,among whom was Leon Trotsky,on the run from Stalin. Art dealer Julian Levy saw her as a “mythical creature,not of this world”,and one myth she fostered was being born in 1910 rather than 1907,not just to be younger,but to be born when the Mexican Revolution began.
Layers of Reality’s “immersive biography” of Kahlo incorporates virtual reality,holography and artificial intelligence,with one of the installations,The Accident,being a multi-layer holograph of that critical incident. “You’ll see a big Frida porcelain sculpture that breaks into dozens and dozens of pieces,” explains Sellas,“and then returns to be the same sculpture because she’s Frida again,but she’s not quite the same sculpture as before.”
Another installation has Kahlo in a hospital bed,surrounded by what Sellas calls “a fluid approach to all the things that gave her pain,but also made her tougher”,shaping her as a person and artist. A third isEndless Symbology:an intimate room with mirrors,projections and interactive floors,where one engages with the main symbols of Kahlo’s work.
Her life was not all sadness and suffering,of course,and the biggest room – which in Sydney will be the biggest they’ve built anywhere – is dedicated to her profound capacity for joy,and living every day as if it were her last. “Her life,” says Sellas,“was more intense than any person I know.”
The exhibition also incorporates sonnets by the 18th-century Mexican nun Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz,a towering intellect,writer,proto-feminist and,Sellas thinks,a closet lesbian. “Frida was a great fan of hers,” he says. “They are like the two big women of Mexican culture. You realise that her words could have been written by Frida,and this is what’s really strong for us:to try to connect culture and heritage in a way that can traverse centuries… It’s really meaningful to find there’s a fine thread pulling together these different arts because they are an evolution of the same thing.”
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Another room represents a bar serving the traditional alcoholic drink,pulque. In such a place Frida and her teenaged students painted a fresco,and there people can create their own paintings,which are scanned to become part of the fresco on the walls. For the finale,visitors don high-resolution virtual-reality headsets to actually go inside Kahlo’s paintings and experience what Sellas calls “the explosion of colours”.
He hopes the exhibition will encourage visitors to delve deeper into Kahlo’s life and work,and there’s much to probe in terms of imaginative power,pain,humour,beauty and resilience. “I am broken,” she once said,“but I am happy to be alive as long as I can paint.” Of her death she observed,“I hope the exit is joyful. I hope I never return.”
Frida Kahlo:The Life of an Icon,The Cutaway,Barangaroo,from January 4.
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