The Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art has welcomed the photography of an internationally famous woman with its new “Mirror, Mirror… Portraits of Frida Kahlo” exhibition.
The goal of the exhibition is to show an arc of Kahlo’s life, and the exhibit will run until Nov. 27.
“She was a 21st-century woman I think in many ways,” said Carol McCusker, the curator of photography at the Harn.
The exhibition will feature the film “The Life and Times of Frida Kahlo,” which gives a history lesson on Kahlo’s life in Mexico amid her coming-of-age during the Mexican Revolution in the 1920s.
Frida Kahlo was an artist, communist and bisexual, who smoked marijuana, traveled the world and was a free spirit in the trust of the world, McCusker said.
She describes putting together the exhibition as “a history lesson, especially with Donald Trump bashing Mexico.”
“We need to understand some of the wonderful things that Mexico produces, and one of them was Frida Kahlo,” McCusker said.
Kahlo was photographed by her father, who was a professional photographer. He photographed her and her family to see Kahlo become the woman she was.
“I just know what an icon she is in the art world,” McCusker said.
When Frida Kahlo was younger, she contracted polio in her right leg, which affected its growth.
At 18, she was in an accident where her pelvis and vagina were pierced by the metal gear shift of a trolley. She went through more than 35 operations over the course of her life.
“For someone to rise to the level of beauty and strengths with that physical adversity was stunning,” McCusker said. “She did it with humor and grace.”
On July 17 at 3 p.m., the Harn will hold a Gallery Talk to discuss the new exhibit.
“I’ll be talking about the nature of photography about the camera as the mirror,” McCusker said. “She was very photogenic, beautiful and charismatic.”
