Viva La Vida

Reflections on Frida Kahlo

Self-Portrait with Thorn Neck­lace and Humming­bird by Frida Kahlo

Communist. Mexicanidad. Mestiza. Invalid. Magical Realist. Artist.

The month of July marks both the birth (July 6, 1907) and death (July 13, 1954) anniversaries of perhaps the most recognized Mexican - certainly the most recognized Mexican woman - who has ever lived: Frida Kahlo.

On a recent trip to a small town library in California (literally 10 bookcases, holding perhaps a few thousand books), I counted 5 books about Frida Kahlo. A count that exceeded the number of books about Abraham Lincoln and George Washington combined. This library was probably not an outlier: it is hard to overstate Frida Kahlo's popularity. Her image - photographs and self-portraits - adorn notebook covers, t-shirts, magnets, handbags, posters most anywhere where these types of items are sold. And certainly in Mexico, her likeness permeates shops and sidewalks with an ubiquity that is almost dulling - it is as expected as the cobblestones, the cracks in the pavement.

Frida Kahlo is - in the truest sense of the word - a Superstar.

More and better words have been written about Frida Kahlo than I could ever muster - so I won't be adding to the biographical cacophony. Type "Frida Kahlo" into your browser's search bar, and hit return. Everything about her life, her work has been written. I won't be spilling more digital ink talking about her parents, her artistic style, her most popular works, her politics, or her marriages (yes, plural) to Diego Rivera.

But perhaps writing something about Frida Kahlo is inevitable for anyone writing about Mexico. And were I to allow this warmest of warm Julys to melt away into August without at least a bit of remembrance of Frida, then I would be failing to live up to the high (lol) standards I have set for myself.

Crawling from the wreckage

I suffer, therefore I am is one of the many corollaries to Descartes' famous first principle. Frida would have understood this better than most. I cannot think of Frida Kahlo and her body of work outside of the context of her extraordinary physical suffering. She contracted polio at the age of six, which left one of her legs shorter and thinner than the other. At the age of 18, she was riding a bus when it crashed into a streetcar. Frida's pelvis was pierced by an iron handrail - her pelvis was fractured, her stomach and uterus were punctured, three vertebrae were displaced, her spine was broken in three places, her right leg was broken in eleven places, her collarbone was broken, her shoulder was dislocated and her right foot was crushed. Immediately after the accident, Frida spent nearly half a year in hospitals and bedrest.

But these injuries would follow Frida for the remainder of her life. Pain and suffering defined her as a person, and her work as an artist. Before the accident, Frida described herself as "a girl walking in a world of colors"; and after the accident "Now I live in a painful planet, transparent as ice...I grew up in a few instants, and now everything is dull and flat." Not words that one might initially expect would come from the mouth of the person who created such bold and vibrant paintings. But look at Frida's works, and the pain is right there - sometimes hinted at, often overtly expressed. It is art undeniably wrought by a suffering soul.

It is fashionable, I suppose, in today's jaded world to snub one's nose at an artist as universally recognized as Frida Kahlo. Can a "true" patron of the arts admire someone whose likeness can be found on so many articles of clothing? But understand why Frida is on those clothes: she is there because she persevered. In a body cast. Lying on her back in bed for months. Not one time, but over and over again. Frida broke free from the confinement and misery of her life, and rendered her imagination on canvases that would go on to live a world apart from her bed, from her chair, from her brutal pain and confinement. One cannot dismiss Frida's work without in the same breath dismissing the human spirit itself, the animus that makes us more like gods than animals.

A photograph of Frida Kahlo, in one of her bedridden states in her home in Mexico City

In the arms of the angel

Frida Kahlo spent her final years in the home where she was born: La Casa Azul in the neighborhood of Coyoacán in Mexico City. In her mid-40s, the ravages of that accident at the age of 18 were still not done with her. Gangrene. Amputations. Bronchopneumonia. The ravages were not done with her, but Frida was done with them: she attempted suicide in 1953.

Later, in 1954, Frida painted one of her final works: a still life of watermelons - various watermelons, both whole and sliced. On one slice of watermelon she added the words "Viva La Vida" - Long Live Life. Frida must have been referring to some more elemental life, the stream of life that carries us all. The universal life, devoid of pain. Life spirit, flowing into the infinite.

Viva la Vida, Watermelons by Frida Kahlo

In July of that year, Frida Kahlo drew the figure of a black angel. And on July 13, 1954 - most likely as the result of an intentional overdose of painkillers - the shackles were forever broken, the suffering forever silenced. The Angel of Death would be Frida's last work, her final invocation: the angel come to take her away, to relieve her of her profound suffering. To deliver her to history and - in a very real sense - to immortality.

More than perhaps many realize, Frida Kahlo is a metaphor for the country she inhabited. A microcosm for Mexico. Or maybe that is just some silly romantic notion. But maybe not. Mexico has suffered many wounds in its history: subjugation, political upheaval, foreign invasion, natural disaster, crushing poverty, unstoppable waves of crime. Mexico continues to suffer. And yet, Mexico perseveres. Through all the pain and the suffering, shines a soul both defined by and delivered from the weight of the past. With its beauty, culture, color, taste, art - the heart of Mexico beats on. Viva La Vida.

Postscript: La Casa Azul

La Casa Azul - Frida Kahlo's place of birth and death - is now a museum in Coyoacán, Mexico City. It is one of those rare spaces where, not only can you find a lot of artwork by a particular artist, you can can get a real sense of the artist's life - or at least some small portion of that life. Being in La Casa Azul is like being within the ribs of some living thing. It is not only a gallery, it is a snapshot of a life. It is a portal into not just another time, but another soul. If you can stand within the house, or in it's courtyards, and if you can mentally isolate yourself from the many visitors who will be in there with you, you can feel what it is like to be in a place of longing - longing for the release that, for some, only art can provide, and that only death can finally extinguish. La Casa Azul is, when stripped of the crowds, that longing undeniably fulfilled.