Frida Kahlo - Context Review.

 The lecture on Frida Kahlo, was to help reflect the style in which we could express our own artists in the Issues and Practices Essay. There is the research process to break down the information and events of the artist's lives and then there is the overall application of relating the events to the practice of the artist's work.
Such things were highlighted that could be considered for this research process:

• Family and country dynamics
• Illness and personal dynamics
• Entry into Art
• Position as an Artist
• Love, Marriage, Despair, personal relationships.
• Politics
• Movements 
• Constructing Identities.

The overall research and points were made about Frida Kahlo to help to restrict the important movements in her life and apply them to how this effected her work. The first underlying points of her personal life and other politics of the time were highlighted efficiently in this process.

• Mother controlled family life
• Born into a Mexican family in 1900's
• Uprising of Mexicans
• Revolution of the Civil War
• Mexican Revolution
• Illness- caught Polio at the age of 9
• 3000 children died of Polio - made her have a limp, and frail leg
• Isolated as a child
• One weaker leg
• Interested in medicine due to her Father's influence
• Had an accident that punctured her abdomen (a pole went through her) in a tram/bus crash.
• Started to paint when recovering from the accident
• Bedbound so painted a lot
• "The Accident" 1926 - Reflects pain and trauma of the experience
• Intense and needy relationships
• Affair with Diego Rivera - 'Peasants' 1947 -his work
• He was a communist
• Rivera was someone she looked up to - influenced her idea of politics
• Part of their culture to have more than one ongoing relationship
• Rivera directed her artwork and political values
• Rivera influenced her to look back at her Mexican roots.
• Spanish Culture 16th Century onwards - influenced her
• Researched into the Aztecs that were there to begin with - primitive styles
• 21st August 1929 - Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera's wedding day.
• Referred to as 'the Elephant and the Dove' - a toad like man in appearance.
• Known to have fallen in love with his power and intelligence not looks.
• Symbolism
• Strands of Mexican culture began to influence her work further 
• Mexico's relationship with America influenced her movements
• She saw industrialisation and machinery as bad forces due to her accident
• Unable to trust machinery
• Influence of Mexican ketablo - votive paintings (a painting depicting an accident or event)
• Produced a votive painting about her accident.
• Diego Rivera's war mural 'Man, controller of the Universe' 1934, controversial content- further influences Kahlo's political views.
• Lennon hiding in the mural- caused chaos. Court case ordered because of it.
• Numerous operations to fix her problems due to the accident
• Always painted in hospital
• "The Flying Bed" 1932- Produced in hospital
• Miscarriage after miscarriage due to the damage of her accident
• Really wanted a child and family with Diego
• "Frida Kahlo- My Birth" 1932
• Death of Mother
• "What the Water gave me" -1938
• Surrealist movement influence
• Marcel Duchamp helped her set up and exhibition
• "The Little Deer" 1938 - Exhibition work - testicles on deer- bisexuality? Impossibility to have a child? - SYMBOLISM.
• Affairs with men and women (Rivera also having numerous affairs)
• Marriage Problems
• Splits from Rivera
• Decides to get back with Rivera but with no sexual relations
• Becomes like a mother figure to Rivera
• Surrogate children in animals-  takes on several exotic pets.
• Diego Rivera "Mexico Today and Tomorrow" 1934-35 - Arrested by Police and put under suspicion due to strong political messages.
• Frida Kahlo "a Few Little Pricks" 1935 - self portrait - shows pain and suffering
• Cropped hair in 1940 - starts to dress like a man again - cuts off the hair Rivera used to love.
• Due to Diego, she sheds her identity
• "The Broken Column" 1944- showing the difficulties with her spine.
• Constant expressions of her pain
• Many operations
• Wheelchair bound due to operations
• Amputated her weak leg
• A sad time in her life was when wheelchair bound - time of depression.
• Aztec costumes
• Pretending she's brave when in agony.
• "She signalled the movement when women artists began to break the historic silence about women's experiences" - Judy Chicago 2010

After having listed all these points there was then an overall review of what was involved and how these applies to the practice.

• Spinal Problems
• Polio
• Depression
• Countless Operations
• Accident
• Heritage
• Hatred of Industrialisation
• Change of Identity
• Betrayal 
• Suicide
• Lack of fertility 
• Marriage Problems
• Miscarriages
• Gender
• Disability
• Economics
• Class