{"id":15795,"date":"2012-10-25T15:14:30","date_gmt":"2012-10-25T19:14:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artoronto.ca\/?p=15795"},"modified":"2012-11-30T17:50:08","modified_gmt":"2012-11-30T22:50:08","slug":"frida-diego-passion-politics-and-painting-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/v2.artoronto.ca\/?p=15795","title":{"rendered":"Frida & Diego: Passion, Politics and Painting"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Press Preview, Tuesday, October 16, 2012<\/strong>
\nART GALLERY OF ONTARIO<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Art Gallery of Ontario welcomed nearly 100 journalists to the media preview of Frida & Diego: Passion, Politics and Painting on October 16, 2012. We were greeted with gingerbread cookies – depicting one of Frida’s famous portraits with flowers – I still saving it as I just can’t bring myself to eat it.<\/p>\n

AGO director and CEO Matthew Teitelbaum<\/em> gave remarks and hosted a discussion with Carlos Phillips Olmedo<\/em>, director of the Museo Dolores Olmedo, and Dot Tuer<\/em>, curator of the exhibition.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\"\"<\/a>(From left) AGO director and CEO \u00a0Matthew Teitelbaum, Carlos Phillips Olmedo, director of the Museo Dolores Olmedo\u00a0and curator of the exhibition Dot Tuer<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>(From left): curator of the exhibition Dot Tuer, AGO director and CEO Matthew Teitelbaum and Ambassador Mauricio Toussaint, Consul General of Mexico in Toronto<\/p>\n

As Carlos Phillips Olmedo pointed out Rivera was the 3rd most celebrated artist in the 1930’s, after Picasso and Matisse.\u00a0Following the Great depression and the Russian Revolution, Mexico was the centre of the Spanish speaking world. In his historical murals\u00a0Rivera idealized the revolutionary masses and the pre-Columbian past. In his works the Mexican revolution became bigger than life. The exhibition of his 7 portable murals travelled the world and he received many\u00a0comisssions, including one for the Rockefeller Centre.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Visitors in front of Diego Rivera’s mural<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Diego Rivera (1886-1957). Vendedora de alcatraces, 1943 (Calla Lily Vendor, 1943), oil on masonite, 150 x 120 cm.\u00a0\u00a0The Jacques and Natasha Gelman Collection of Mexican Art. (C) Banco de Mexico Diego Rivera Frida Kahlo Museum Trust, M.D.F.\/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York<\/p>\n

Frida Kahlo\u00a0found\u00a0frame again\u00a0in the 1970s\u00a0through the feminist movement. Frida, however wasn’t oppressed at any point of her life. Quite the opposite. She grew up in a middle class family. Her father was a photographer from German origins. It was through him\u00a0that Kahlo gained\u00a0knowledge of the magics and the powers of photography, as well as meeting a large group of intellectual friends she later shared with Rivera. What connected them was their idealism, their revolutionary political positions\u00a0\u00a0and their love for the contry. Rivera was an accomplished artist, 20 years Kahlo’s senior when they married.<\/p>\n

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Kahlo\u2019s most famous works are her self-portraits. Of the 143 paintings she completed, 55 are self-portraits. She often used indigenous Mexican symbolism, like idols and animals that represent the underworld and also\u00a0as her surrogate children.\u00a0In her\u00a0paintings, physical pain and psychological wounds are central elements.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Frida Kahlo (1907-1954). Autorretrato con monos, 1943 (Self-Portrait with Monkeys, 1943), oil on canvas, 81.5 x 63 cm. The Jacques and Natasha Gelman Collection of Mexican Art. (C) Banco de Mexico Diego Rivera Frida Kahlo Museum Trust, M.D.F.\/Artists Rights Society (ARS), NewYork<\/p>\n

Rivera\u00a0was a charismatic person and a talented storyteller – the centre of every party. Kahlo was a more private person. She couldn’t move around a lot because of the physical pain she suffered after a debilitating bus accident at the age of 18. Her paintings embody the spiritual anguish caused by Rivera’s infidelity and by her inability to have children.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Frida Kahlo (1907-1954) Hospital Henry Ford, 1932 (<\/em>Henry Ford Hospital<\/em>, 1932) oil on metal, 31 X 38.5 cm Collection Museo Dolores Olmedo, Xochimilco, Mexico (C) Banco de M\u00e9xico Diego Rivera & Frida Kahlo Museums Trust, Mexico, D.F.\/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York<\/p>\n

This is the first time when Rivera’s and Kahlo’s works are exhibited in the same room. It brings out the intimacy of Rivera’s smaller paintings and drawings and shows the monumentality underlining some of Frida’s work.\u00a0I’ve never seen Kahlo’s latest, miniature paintings before, and\u00a0 their almost abstract beauty surprised me.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

There are some nice quotations projected on the gallery’s wall\u00a0 showing their admiration for each other’s “vision of the truth”.\u00a0 A short film made by\u00a0 Nickolas Muray also depicts their passion for each other. Photographs by Lola Alvarez Bravo, Bernard Silberstein and others help tell the story of one of the most prolific and politically charged couples of the 20th century.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The Frida and Diego catrinas <\/em>are\u00a0a nod to the practice of portraying loved ones as skeletons during the Day of the Dead<\/em> festival on November 1 and 2, a tradition popularized by the Mexican graphic artist Jos\u00e9 Guadalupe Posada<\/em> (1851-1913). The AGO invited Shadowland<\/em>\u00a0 to create the Judas and Posada figures you see in this gallery. These five figures were made by Shadowland artists Anne Barber<\/em>, Brad Harley<\/em>, Angela Thomas<\/em>, Kristi White<\/em> and Barbara Klunder<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Text: Emese Krun\u00e1k-Hajagos. Photo: Mauricio Contreras-Paredes<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Oct 20, 2012 \u2013 Jan 20, 2013<\/strong><\/p>\n

ART GALLERY OF ONTARIO<\/strong><\/p>\n

a tribute to these two great painters, their love to their country, dedication to the communist ideas and passion for each other<\/p>\n

Read more →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15779,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[90,41,80,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15795","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-emese-krunak-hajagos","category-events","category-mauricio-contreras-parades","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/v2.artoronto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15795","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/v2.artoronto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/v2.artoronto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/v2.artoronto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/v2.artoronto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15795"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"https:\/\/v2.artoronto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15795\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16832,"href":"https:\/\/v2.artoronto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15795\/revisions\/16832"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/v2.artoronto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15779"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/v2.artoronto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/v2.artoronto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/v2.artoronto.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}