Frida Kahlo’s bold handwriting graces the entrance of her personal exhibition at London’s V&A, titled “Frida Kahlo: Making Her Self Up” (open until November 4, 2018). The content of the Spanish text is almost secondary to its enchanting allure. Ink on journal pages has a uniquely evocative power.
Kahlo, whose fame rivals that of Madonna and Tequila, is instantly recognizable by her monobrow and mustache, and has been adopted as a feminist icon, a female artist, and a wronged wife. Yet, Kahlo’s life was a tapestry of seductive contradictions, much like her ornate yet straightforward handwriting. The enigmatic artist, who painted, lived, and loved from her four-poster bed, defies simple categorization.
As a decadent communist focused on personal rather than political themes, Kahlo might have been unsettled by Theresa May flaunting a Kahlo bracelet at the Party Conference last year. Would she find the commercial rush at the V&A gift shop amusing?
During her lifetime, Kahlo did not enjoy the fame she does now. She refused to be overshadowed by her celebrated husband, Diego Rivera, whom she married twice. Neither did she succumb to being a victim of her physical ailments or Rivera’s infidelities. After Rivera had an affair with her favorite sister, Kahlo used Trotsky to provoke his jealousy, shortly before Trotsky was assassinated by an ice pick-wielding assassin with whom she had dined weeks earlier.
Kahlo refused to be defined by her injuries from a catastrophic traffic accident that crushed her spine and impaled her pelvis. Instead, she made dark jokes about losing her virginity to a trolley car. Although doctors predicted she would die bedridden in her Blue House with only her imaginary friend for company, Kahlo transformed herself into art. Her father installed a mirror over her bed so she could draw herself. Despite eventually losing her leg, already weakened by childhood polio, her imaginary friend stayed with her until the end.
Art is rooted in identity, and for Kahlo, identity was her path to art. She was a cross-dressing bisexual before it became a trend, a communist with a collection of votive paintings, mentally strong but physically frail. This duality permeates her work, often depicting two Fridas: one healthy, the other sick; one bloodless, the other bleeding; one European, the other Mexican.
The Blue House, her birthplace and deathbed, is now a museum and one of Mexico City’s top attractions. However, Rivera ordered her bathroom sealed upon her death. Half a century later, its contents are on display at the V&A.
Why did Rivera exclude her bathroom from the museum? Perhaps he couldn’t bear the thought of anyone, including himself, intruding on her private space. The cardboard box of Demerol, necessary for a lifetime of pain, her monobrow-shaping Ebony eyebrow pencil, corsets adorned with communist symbols, red lipsticks, a red leg, and a large bottle of Shalimar perfume all evoke a deep emotional response.
Do personal items retain their owner’s essence? Did the Shalimar perfume witness arguments between Kahlo and Rivera?
Kahlo wore traditional Mexican outfits to express solidarity with the peasant class and to conceal her deformities. Or perhaps she simply loved the vibrant colors and dramatic styles.
The glass cases displaying her Tehuana costumes are less compelling to me than the mutilated photographs found in her bathroom. Sometimes her own face is cut out of the picture, sometimes the faces of others are removed, like the gangrenous parts of her leg.
Kahlo cut off the front of her shoe when her toes rotted. I was both repelled and drawn to this mutilated shoe, practically able to smell her Everything’s Rosy nail polish and matching lipstick. Red was her color—symbolizing life, blood, communism. Her scarlet prosthetic leg, adorned with bows, dragons, and bells, is the centerpiece of the exhibition. As her surrealist friend Andre Breton said, “The art of Frida Kahlo is a ribbon around a bomb.”
Our bathrooms may reveal more about us than our diaries. Beauty products, medicines, and mutilated photographs testify to vanity, need, and despair. My own bathroom is a sacred space; even my manservant isn’t allowed to clean it. Sometimes at night, when I glimpse myself in the mirror’s dim light, I feel like my evil twin is standing behind me.
I’ve always enjoyed snooping in bathrooms, trying out other people’s products, even if they make me sneeze. Many bathrooms are filled with petrochemicals and bergamot-scented potions, a common allergen. Back in the day, when Maddie and I went visiting, she’d urge me to check the closets. If caught, I was to claim I got lost on my way to the bathroom.
My tubercular toe, more accurate than a weather forecast, aches before a thunderstorm. As I leave Kahlo’s lipsticks behind at the V&A and walk home to Soho, the storm begins, and I can almost hear Kahlo saying, “I tried to drown my sorrows. But the bastards learned to swim.”