The road to 'Fridamania': how Frida Kahlo became a global phenomenon

""For over 30 years, we have seen many Kahlo exhibitions, mainly retrospectives, with little or no attention paid to the posthumous ascendancy of her legacy," says the exhibition's curator, Mari Carmen Ramírez. "The exhibition is about Frida's art and legacy, but also about the Frida phenomenon, which reflects the intersection of high and low, elite and popular culture, alongside commercial interests.""

"The show Frida: the Making of an Icon will look at Kahlo's multifaceted, often contradictory, personality and her rise to fame from the 1970s onwards, through influential biographies and Chicano and feminist reinterpretations of her work. "The exhibition looks into Kahlo's relation to race, ethnicity and gender, her ambiguous relationship with the US, and her overlooked political persona as the basis of her appeal to diverse groups and movements," Ramírez says."

"The show will bring together Kahlo's personal items and 35 works, including The Broken Column (1944), alongside pieces by 80 artists across five generations who have been influenced by her. They range from established names such as the Cuban American artist Ana Mendieta to more recent artists such as the Mexican Berenice Olmedo, whose work explores disability (Kahlo was disabled by childhood polio and a bus crash when she was 18)."

A large-scale exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston traces Frida Kahlo's ascent from a little-known artist in Diego Rivera's shadow to an international icon and brand. The show displays personal items and 35 works, including The Broken Column (1944), alongside pieces by 80 artists across five generations influenced by Kahlo. The exhibition examines Kahlo's complex relation to race, ethnicity, gender, her ambiguous ties to the US, and her political persona. Organized thematically, sections contextualize her work within Surrealism, the Chicano movement, feminism, LGBTQ+ art, and Neo-Mexicanism, and explore her embrace as a symbol by contemporary artists.

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