| Artist: | Kahlo, Frida |
|
|---|---|---|
| Title of Work: | Self-Portrait (Diego and I) | |
| Date of Work: | 1949 | |
| Nationality: | Mexican | |
| Context: | Latin American Modernism | |
| Movement: | Mexican Surrealism | |
| Medium: | Oil | |
| Subject: a self-portrait that reflects dream logic in the condensation of Diego's face on Frida's forehead. "I have suffered two serious accidents in my life," Kahlo once said, "one in which a streetcar ran over me. . . . The other accident is Diego." Married to Rivera in 1929, when she was 22 and he was 43, divorced in 1939 and remarried to him in 1940, their relationship was stormy and intense (he even had an affair with her sister, though she had many affairs, as well, including some with women). Diego certainly did get into her head. Focus here is on the inner reality and desiring body, the mind's eye. Style: representational and fantastic, symbolic and iconic. This frontal image is placed on a strong, central axis, like an icon or the traditional sacred altar format of a Mexican retablo painting. Using dream logic strategies of displacement and condensation, Kahlo sets out to create a mythic identity for herself; the self-portrait thus becomes a format for enacting her own identity as myth and martyr. Context: it is often debated whether Kahlo's work should be labeled Surrealist (suggesting a European influence or association) or as a form of magic realism that belongs more to a Latin American vision. Breton once said of Mexico, "it is already surreal." As she herself wrote, "I adore surprise and the unexpected. I like to go beyond realism." But she also reminds us, "I paint my own reality." It is difficult to separate art from life (and myth) in Kahlo's case because her art is so painfully autobiographical. Her imagery is less about fantasy than about an exploration of her own personal reality; it is a quest for self-identity. That search leads her to the inner eye and psychic "I" that characterize Surrealism, only it is a search that is rooted in her native Mexican reality and life experience. Kahlo's vision is her own, but it is one that has affinities with Surrealism. | ||
