Art Madrid'23 – FRIDA KAHLO AND HER VINTAGE ESTHETIC

Prosthetics 1953. Photo: Miguel Tovar

 

 

Frida Kahlo, the feminist muse of S.XX. Her intense and unfortunate life contrasts with the energy and expressiveness of her work. The people was cataloged as a surrealist artist, but she did not even label herself. She managed to grant the great Diego Rivera the nickname of "the husband of ..." This timeless muse still gives much to speak 62 years after his death. Her personal style is a reference in popular culture and the Museum Frida Kahlo has taken advantage of this characteristic aesthetic to pay homage.

 

 

View of the room 2. Photo: Miguel Tovar

 

 

The exhibition "The appearances deceive: Frida Kahlo’s dresses" is the first exhibition exhibited in the artist's museum about her wardrobe. With this new interpretation, her curator Circe Henestrosa Conoan, has wanted to make the visitor share the full strength of Mexican style. The wardrobe, discovered in 2004 in the artist's bathroom, explore her identity and fosters the visual imagery of traditional clothing.

 

This exhibition has reopened the debate of contemporary fashion since these clothes have inspired the great designers of the most current fashion world. Some of them are Ricardo Tisci or Jean Paul Gaultier. The latter premiered a collection inspired by her in the 1998 titled "Homage to Frida Kahlo"

 

 

Dai Rees. Photo: Miguel Tovar

 

 

Frida's political and cultural convictions have always been in focus, her impulse to revolution and her involvement in the diffusion of Mexican culture are a reference. This exhibition, shows tradition and disability, places them as pillars that have laid the foundations of the new base of popular culture and extol the figure of the artist. Not only can we know the frida revolutionary, but it brings us closer to a more human frida being able to admire her personal and more characteristic objects.

 

 

Givenchy. Photo: Miguel Tovar

 

 

The search for his identity is remarked with the Tetuhana history that showed with her daily attire. Strength and momentum are the nutrients and art his word. The influence he has achieved can only be explained by these small gifts that have left us to all those who we declare ourselves fervent followers. You can enjoy the exhibition until the end of 2016 at the Museum that bears his name in Mexico, if you are in the area do not miss this opportunity.

 

 

 

In the year 2020 in the heart of Barcelona a wandering gallery was born, the same one that in February 2021 would debut at Art Madrid with an exhibition proposal focused on contemporary portraits; with this subject matter it would manage to create a powerful dialogue between artwork and audience and make the seal Inéditad remain in the history of the event that contained it.

Jean Carlos Puerto. Protección. Oil and copper leaf on wood. 60 x 48. 2021. Image courtesy of the gallery.

Since that first time and until today, the wandering gallery has managed to build projects on otherness, has repositioned in the spotlight the discourses on the LGTBIQ+ collective, has consolidated a group of artists who share its principles of resilience and empathy and the best thing is that it continues to bet from the professionalism and commitment to give voice to the difference.

Claudio Petit-Laurent.. El Joven de la Perla. Oil on wood. 30 x 30 cm. 2023. Image courtesy of the gallery.

Inéditad Gallery, thanks to its founder Luis López, its collaborators and the infinite possibilities manifested in the works of the artists it represents, is a gallery that has demonstrated its capacity and courage to stimulate the sensibility of the public through art and seduce a generation that moves between the glass window and the analogical story. Inéditad is a nomadic gallery that has gathered around it a community of artists and has moved the context with exhibition projects that think about LGTBIQ+ art without prejudices.

Pepa Salas Vilar. Las marcas del arcoiris. Oil on canvas. 40 x 50 cm. 2022. Image courtesy of the gallery.

Pride and Prejudice was inaugurated. An exhibition that brings together the works of sixteen artists: Abel Carrillo, Alex Domènech, Carlos Enfedaque, Silvia Flechoso, Jamalajama, Daniel Jaén, Claudio Petit-Laurent, Jean Carlos Puerto, Fernando Romero, Pablo Rodríguez, Pepa Salas Vilar, Jack Smith, Pablo Sola, Bran Sólo, Elia Tomás and Utürüo. Painting, illustration, photography and digital art are the manifestations that bring into dialogue around fifty neatly threaded pieces, in a discursive line that discusses such a latent phenomenon as discrimination. To achieve this, the artists invited to the exhibition question themselves whether: Does discrimination exist within the LGTBIQ+ collective?

Pride and Prejudice Official Poster. Image courtesy of the gallery.

With approaches on and from the body, the proposal invites to celebrate diversity, proposes to question and self-question the prejudices and attitudes of society against the collective. Pride and Prejudice is a space for dialogue about the constructs imposed on us by society. It is also an oasis in which to deconstruct with tolerance and respect the subjectivities that sometimes prevent us from approaching the production of the participating artists, simply because "the beautiful" does not fit in an androgynous body. The subjugation of stereotypes are pressed with determination to find the beauty of diversity in other palpable facets of reality.

Pablo Sola. All men are dogs. Photography. 2014. Image courtesy of the gallery.

Throughout these three years Inéditad has stimulated the vindictive projection towards bad practices, has questioned estates around the LGTBIQ+ body and the most admirable thing, is that these capacities have resurfaced around the dialogue and the visual narrative of the stories that are told from the visual: Artworks that are people, art that is, per se, humanity. Overcome impositions and accept what is different in order to continue fighting against homophobia, biphobia, lesbophobia or transphobia and defend the equal rights that all the acronyms of the collective deserve in our community.

That's Pride and Prejudice: One creature, the happiest in the world. And maybe other projects and other people have said it - or felt it - before, but none so fairly.

Silvia Flechoso. Hola, soy maricón. Oil on canvas. 73 x 54 cm. 2023. Image courtesy of the gallery.

From June 8th until June 22nd you can visit Pride and Prejudice. Carrer de Palau núm. 4. Canal Gallery space. Barcelona.