Exquisite and dazzling, in the midst of one of Mexico City’s most enchanting and culturally vibrant neighbourhoods, Coyoacan, stands the residence of probably one of the most inspiring and original Latin American artists: Frida Kahlo.

It is called “The Blue Home” (La Casa Azul) simply because of the external colours of its walls. It is estimated that about 25 thousand visitors come to see Kahlo’s home every month and, amongst them, at least half are foreigners.
Kahlo’s childhood house, after her marriage with Mexican muralist Diego Rivera, they lived together in the Casa Azùl inviting artists, intellectuals, writers and political activists such as André Breton, Léon Trotsky, José Clemente Orozco, Sergei Eisenstein and many others.

Self portrait as a Tehuana

Self portrait as a Tehuana

Frida was born in 1907 in Mexico City from Wilhelm Guillermo Kahlo and Matilde Calderón. She starts her artistic career following a tragic accident on a public tram when she was 18 following a fracture on her spinal cord that paralyzed her for 9 months. In this painful state of immobility she started painting from her bed. In 1938 her style has been defined by poet and writer André Breton, not only as the first Latino American Surrealist due to her continuous references to death, life after death and at Mexican traditional symbolism, but also as a precursor of feminism because of her way of representing herself without hiding her mono brow and moustache, characteristics considered typically masculine and her life style made of promiscuity and frenziness. She expresses in her paintings all her anguishes, fears, desires, loves, frustrations and the numerous health problems that will make her existence a misery.

A main subject in her art is her beloved husband Diego Rivera with whom she has a complex relationship due to his numerous affairs including with her sister Christina. Amongst the most well known portraits Diego on my Mind (1943) where Frida represents herself with the typical dress from Tehuantepec, a village near Oaxaca, with Diego’s face painted on her forehead as if he were her third eye as the personification of wisdom and her existential guide.

Miguel Tovar

Miguel Tovar

Tra i dipinti, le sale, gli utensili per dipingere ed il meraviglioso giardino di Casa Azùl, sono allestite anche esposizioni temporanee. In questo momento è presentata LAS APARIENCIAS ENGAÑAN: LOS VESTIDOS DE FRIDA KAHLO. Questa mostra, molto originale, esplora lo stile di vestirsi unico dell’artista. Indossava, infatti, i vestiti tradizionali di Oaxaca, non solo per far piacere a suo marito, ma anche per onorare questa comunità, che a differenza del preponderante maschilismo presente in Messico, era matriarcale e dominata in sotto ogni punto di vista dalle donne. C’è tuttavia un’altra verità, più profonda e tragica: Frida aveva numerosi difetti nel suo corpo a causa degli effetti della poliomielite contratta in giovane età che le lasciò una gamba più corta dell’altra ed ai retaggi dell’incidente giovanile che la costrinsero all’uso di corsetti: per mascherare queste imperfezioni, indossava solo gonne lunghe con scarpe che avessero un tacco più alto dell’altro, decorava i suoi corsetti con temi variopinti e metteva lunghi scialli e camicie ampie che coprirsi il torso. Frida stessa definiva il suo corpo come “Meno che perfetto”, quindi i suoi abili tentativi di camuffamento non sono una sorpresa. L’esposizione, non solo mostra i suoi bellissimi vestiti, ma mette in scena come il suo stile unico abbia influenzato i designers futuri, Messicani ed internazionali come Jean Paul Gaultier, Comme des Garçon’s e Riccardo Tisci per Givenchy.

Nella Casa Azùl, oasi nel cuore caotico della città, è possibile vedere il Messico, i suoi colori e la sua ricchezza culturale, con gli occhi di Frida Khalo.

This post is also available in: Italian