Frida Karlo

Quick, name a famous female artist, and not like a "recording artist"/ singer songwriter like Madonna, Lady Gaga, etc. Not many people come to mind, right? Maybe Georgia O'Keefe if you're into Southwest American murals and female anatomy-looking figures, but the 2 most prominent female artists that come to mind for most of my circle of friends are Frida Karlo and Yayoi Kusama. Both of theme have exhibits at the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh, which is quickly becoming one of MJ and I's favorite spots to go to.

I guess all famous people have to have a calling card, something that they're famous for, and for Kusama I guess it's gonna be for the pink polka dots. Which is fine! (and better than the other thing she's known for, checking herself into a mental hospital). It's amazing how artists can rise in popularity later in life, usually do to a popular piece of work that gets universal approval, like the Infinity Room in downtown LA. It's a shame that I hadn't even heard of Kusama (or Frida, for that matter!) until like 3 years ago, and come to think of it all the art history I'd ever known before that were done by men like Michelangelo, Da Vinci, Monet, Picasso, etc., etc. Even Chinese artists were mostly men, and the most memorable are poets. Art, like most other things, has been dominated by men throughout history, which is why the Frida Karlo exhibition MJ and I went to is so important: it highlights the work of women artists and makes them our heroes, and somewhere a young aspiring woman artist can dream of becoming like her or becoming the best artist they can be. It's a little shallow to just be inspired based on someone's race or someone's gender, but I do admit that seeing Andrew Yang and Crazy Rich Asians does make me have hope to make it in American society, just as Obama gives hope to a generation of young black people.

The Frida Karlo exhibit was simple but very informative about Frida's life, from having a debilitating disease at a young age to getting run over by a bus in a nearly fatal accident, she seemed to have a tumultuous life and died early. The pictures that really delved into her personality, though, was Frieda in a wheelchair painting and her husband, Diego Rivera, himself a famous artist, standing behind her, wheeling around. A bit of comic irony that MJ and I viewed the exhibit with me wheeling MJ around looking at Diego wheeling Frida around. MJ then informed me, though, that Diego wasn't a great husband to Frida, and that seemed to be confirmed by their divorcing before remarrying about a year later. Seemed like there was a lot of marital stress, but I feel like that might have had something to do with him being 20 years older than her. Overall, I wasn't necessarily impressed by the quality of Frieda's pieces necessarily from a technical perspective (they weren't exactly dazzling masterpieces), but they have a type of unmatched spiritual quality like "Frida with 4 monkeys" or "Frida with Diego on Her Mind," a self-portrait of Frida with a portrait of Diego on her forehead. Really goes to show how powerful one's message can be even unexpectedly and have a profound impact on the rest of the world. Even Disney depicted Frida in its hit animated movie "Coco," so even they acknowledge the impact that she's made not just in the art world but transcended into mainstream consciousness. Me? I just liked going through her special exhibit for an hour and diving into the story of her life.

Fantasize on,

Robert Yan