Art Gallery of SA exhibition to explore the enduring allure of Frida Kahlo
Passion and politics are at the heart of a major Australian-exclusive exhibition of works by influential Mexican modernists Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera that will be presented as part of the Art Gallery of SA’s 2023 program.
Frida Kahlo enthusiast Jacqueline Feronas with a reproduction of Kahlo’s 'Diego on my Mind' at the announcement of 'Frida & Diego: Love & Revolution' at the Art Gallery of South Australia. Photo: Saul Steed
Frida & Diego: Love & Revolution, to be presented at the gallery from June 24 to September 17 next year, is described as the most comprehensive exhibition of Mexican modernism ever seen in Australia and will feature iconic works by Kahlo and husband Rivera, alongside works by some of their key Mexican contemporaries.
It will be the first time Kahlo’s work has been exhibited in Adelaide in almost 30 years.
Frida Kahlo, Self-Portrait with Monkeys, 1943, oil on canvas, 81.5 x 63cm; The Jacques and Natasha Gelman Collection of Mexican Modernism, © Banco de México Rivera Kahlo Museums Trust/ARS.
In announcing the exhibition today, AGSA director Rhana Devenport said Frida & Diego will “reveal the vitality of modern Mexican art while exploring the enduring allure of Frida Khalo… a 21st-century muse who is today revered as a feminist and as singular political and creative force”.
Kahlo and Rivera – who were married from 1929 to 1939, then divorced and remarried again a year later in 1940 – were considered radical in their art and politics, with the gallery saying the pair were at the forefront of the artistic and cultural avant-garde in post-revolution Mexico from the 1920s to the 1950s.
The more than 150 works in the ticketed exhibition come from the collection of Jacques and Natasha Gelman, who were close friends of the artists and formed a large collection of Mexican modernist works. They include paintings, works on paper, photographs and period clothing.
AGSA is working with architects Grieve Gillett Andersen to create an immersive exhibition that will also reference Kahlo’s traditional family home La Casa Azul (The Blue House) and Diego’s modernist studio.
Tansy Curtin, the gallery’s curator of international art, pre-1980, says Frida & Diego will be an experiential exhibition that enables gallery visitors to get up close and personal with the artists. The works will traverse a period from the Mexican cultural revolution of the early 20th century right through to the end of Kahlo’s life in 1954, exploring social and cultural shifts.
“It’s an exhibition that will take you on a journey through different themes, [and] highlight new ideas – ideas that are perhaps not well known in Australian art history…,” Curtin says.
“And then, of course, we come back to the story of Frida and Diego, their turbulent love affair… Frida pursued Diego as a young student at the national art school in Mexico City and they fell gloriously and hopelessly in love and had many challenges along the way.”
Diego Rivera, Sunflowers, 1943, oil on canvas, 90 x 130cm; The Jacques and Natasha Gelman Collection of Mexican Modernism, © Banco de México Rivera Kahlo Museums Trust/ARS.
Rivera is known for his large-scale murals across Mexico City and in the US, while Kahlo – who painted just 146 works in her lifetime – is celebrated for her bold and evocative self-portraits through which Curtin says she was able to reclaim herself and her identity.
“Every new generation is brought into enjoying these works by Frida Kahlo, the deep psychological connection between the viewer and Frida’s own image, and how important that idea was of bringing in this wonderful historical clothing, this costuming… and using that to reclaim Mexican cultural identity.”
Other highlights of AGSA’s 2023 program include the previously announced Andy Warhol & Photography: A Social Media, which will be presented during the Adelaide Festival and explore the American pop artist’s obsession with photography, and the first survey exhibition of Western Aranda artist Vincent Namatjira, winner of the 2020 Archibald Prize and the 2019 Ramsay Art Prize.
Vincent Namatjira with his work Going Out Bush, presented at the Art Gallery of SA as part of Illuminate Adelaide 2022. Photo: Sia Duff
Vincent Namatjira: Australia in colour – featuring paintings, works on paper and moving image works from public and private collections nationwide – will be presented at the gallery in October as part of the 2023 Tarnanthi Festival and then tour to the National Gallery of Australia in 2024.
After being presented online for the past two years, the popular Tarnanthi Art Fair will return as a physical event next year, this time at the Adelaide Entertainment Centre.
From May through until early August, AGSA will present an exhibition exploring the life and 60-year career of pioneering South Australian potter Milton Moon, while the work of finalists in the 2023 Ramsay Art Prize will go on show for three months following the announcement of the winner on May 26.
The gallery this week also opens two new summer exhibitions: Bewilderness, a showcase of recent acquisitions in painting, sculpture, video and photography, and Sera Waters: Future Traditions by South Australian textile artist and 2020 Guildhouse Fellow Sera Waters.
