January 9 2008 Frieda Kahlo Exhibit at the Walker

I’ve just come back from our holiday trip to the US. I don’t feel like writing about yet another trip to the US. It’s great going back and seeing everyone, but the wonders of returning to the US have worn thin for me. I no longer wonder at the lack of Asians, or get dazzled by the vast open spaces and the variety available in our supermarkets. Like my friend Sherry has said in her blog, after awhile the US becomes just another interesting country. Yes it is where I’ve spend most of my life, and yes it is where my children and my parents live, but the US as a whole no longer feels QUITE so much like home sweet home for me. This time, coming back to Hong Kong I definitely felt like I had come home; to my apartment, to my stuff, to my city. What a change almost two years can bring!

With that in mind I thought I would write about a fun afternoon we spent while visiting Sarah in Minneapolis. We went to see the Frieda Kahlo exhibit at the Walker Art Museum and we also saw a film presentation of the best British ads from 2007.

The Walker is a lovely modern art museum. It’s all odd angles, tilted windows and strange furniture to sit upon while viewing the art. The Frieda Kahlo exhibit was VERY crowded. They were letting people in slowly, trying to manage the crowds. It made it somewhat difficult to view the art. This was a big exhibit. I think they said that 2/3rds of her known paintings were included in this exhibit. That much Frieda in one fell swoop was a little, no a lot, hard to take! I never realized how down right GORY her paintings are, not to mention symbolic. She was a surrealist, even before she knew what surrealism meant. Most of her art revolved around Diego Rivera, her husband and the love of her life, and the way he broke her heart. The rest of it seemed to be about her various illnesses and operations. So, there was symbolic blood from her broken heart AND real blood from all the medical procedures she experienced.

We went with Sarah and Erik, and after about 20 minutes I think I was the only one left in the exhibit. The rest of them went out and explored the odd furniture instead.

There was an additional exhibit with photographs from her life and I actually enjoyed this more than the paintings overall. There was one of her paintings, however, that I really enjoyed. It’s a self-portrait of her with her parrots. It’s beautiful, very colorful, and not fraught with deep inner meanings or overblown symbols.