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A perennial milestone on the calendar is the staging of the NATSIAA – National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island Art Awards by the Museum and Gallery of the Northern Territory– this year slated for 10 August 2023 – 14 January 2024. I tried to drown my sorrows, but the bastards learned how to swim, and now I am overwhelmed with this decent and good feeling. And with Rising, the Melbourne winter arts festival, slated to return in June, it is a good time to play your creative staycation. On the west coast, the Art Gallery of Western Australia presents the first major museum exhibition of Farah Al Qasimi (born 1991, Abu Dhabi) in Australia. Star Machinecomprises over 20 works from a key five-year period of the artist’s practice (2017–2021) and asks important questions around ‘what do photos do now?’ (4 February– 30 July 2023, free).
Kahlo was born Magdalena Carmen Frieda Kahlo y Calderón on July 6, 1907, in Coyoacán, Mexico City, Mexico. While she never considered herself a surrealist, Kahlo befriended one of the primary figures in that artistic and literary movement, Andre Breton, in 1938. That same year, she had a major exhibition at a New York City gallery, selling about half of the 25 paintings shown there. Kahlo also received two commissions, including one from famed magazine editor Clare Boothe Luce, as a result of the show. But the show is as much about Kahlo’s joys and passion for life and art as it is about her pain, as seen through colorful butterflies, blooming flowers and self-portraits of the artist.
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Kahlo and Rivera went through periods of separation, but they joined together to help exiled Soviet communist Leon Trotsky and his wife Natalia in 1937. The Trotskys came to stay with them at the Blue House (Kahlo's childhood home) for a time in 1937 as Trotsky had received asylum in Mexico. Once a rival of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, Trotsky feared that he would be assassinated by his old nemesis. Kahlo and Trotsky reportedly had a brief affair during this time. After a triumphant return in 2022, Sydney Contemporary (NSW) will again be held at Carriageworks, 7-10 September. One not to be missed in Queensland, is the exhibition Looking Out, Looking In at QAGOGA, (11 March – 6 August, free). It explores the genre of the self-portrait, a distinct form of portraiture.
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A number of fantastic immersive Frida Kahlo experiences, held in cities such as London, Los Angeles, Chicago and Boston have sadly ended, but there are plenty of other Frida Kahlo exhibitions being held across the world. Too often, documentaries about art and artists can lean towards the pretentious and stodgy. Not so with Becoming Frida Kahlo, the first of a three-part series on the legendary Mexican painter, which canters along at a celebratory pace. This opening episode, The Making and Breaking, squashes a great deal of information and insight about Kahlo’s early life into an hour, and sets up a gripping and convincing portrait of the great artist that she would become. There have been two great accidents in my life. One was the trolley and the other was Diego. Diego was by far the worst. By the end, Kahlo’s work has taken a turn towards darkness, and we are confronted with the pain that drove her to create. “I had to paint it because I felt murdered by life,” she says.
The early years of her relationship with Rivera form the bulk of the opening episode. It reminded me of Modern Couples, an exhibition at the Barbican in London a few years ago, that featured the work of Kahlo and Rivera among many others, and examined how artistic couples managed their creativity. It was full of little insights into ego and collaboration and jealousy. By the end of this opener, he is the “great maestro” and she is the “little wife … always in the shadows”; the irony, of course, being that we know how this story ends, and history has put Rivera in the shadows, albeit brightly lit. Featuring Lopez vs Lopez, The Real Housewives of Miami, Leguizamo Does America, Messi, The Mask of Zorro, Fast X, Enough, Machete, Endgame, Superstore, and other TV and film titles; channels including Telemundo al Dia; soccer; telenovelas; horror; women in film; and more. Kahlo divorced Rivera in 1939. They did not stay divorced for long, remarrying in 1940. The couple continued to lead largely separate lives, both becoming involved with other people over the years. Artistic Career If you are in Victoria, then Tamara Dean’s exhibition About face: are you a boy or a girl? at Monash Art Gallery (19 January – 19 February) comprises 11 portraits of sitters who each have been described or identify as androgynous. They are shown alongside Lebanon born/Melbourne-based artist Ayman Kaake’s portraits of a diasporic life, in Exulansis. It might feel odd, given her disability,” says a representative of the show, Leisha Bereson, “but it also makes perfect sense. This space and the format is meant to be a reflective experience for the visitor, and it’s an extension of that.”
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Kahlo received a commission from the Mexican government for five portraits of important Mexican women in 1941, but she was unable to finish the project. She lost her beloved father that year and continued to suffer from chronic health problems. Despite her personal challenges, her work continued to grow in popularity and was included in numerous group shows around this time.
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