Tag: General

Dangerous curves

Who is your favorite historical figure?

Spending most of my life in the arts because of personal bias and without reasonable perspective, I might choose someone like Van Gogh, Rimbaud or Hildegard of Bingen.

But I am old enough to appreciate my limited view. Taking nothing from the aforementioned, I have wound up knowing more about less (or is it less about more, more or less? Dah).

A grander view would include Newton, Epicurus or Joan of Arc but I know little about them. These days I like the left field characters, the misfits that take the untrodden path. Moondog, Thelonious Monk, Erik Satie.

Oh but I forgot to mention the irresistible. A most uncompromising historical figure. Someone who has survived boundless human endeavour and vicissitudes. A force of matchless beauty and remains undiminished from centuries past. Oh, Venus de Milo you have dangerous curves! I have a crush on you (a stone crush).

Gone camping

Have you ever been camping?

It used to be a regular thing. As a family we used to go way north of Adelaide to camp in the Flinders Rangers. It got into my veins pretty early with all the experiences that go with it including the boring, the messy, swimming au natural.

I remember volunteering for the school holiday hiking trips. One year we did the Cradle Mountain/ Lake St Clair trek in Tasmania. Another year a small group of us did the Mount Kosciusko high country. Then nothing. Nothing for years. Why? I thought I’d changed, that I didn’t need it. That I didn’t need to ‘go bush’ anymore. But maybe underneath I’m hankering for untamed nature after all. Maybe the easy domesticated world I inhabit isn’t enough. Trees, rocks, ice, mountains, rivers, ropes, carabiners, blinding sunshine, freezing wind, rain, blisters, tired legs, hunger. Remember? Naah. Time to raid the fridge instead.

Frida Kahlo

I have never seen a Frida Kahlo painting until I had the opportunity to attend the Frida & Diego: Love & Revolution exhibition at the AGSA. There are roughly 150 works from the Jacques and Natasha Gelman Collection showcasing some of Frida’s most iconic works. The show is especially successful because her work hangs side by side with Diego Rivera’s and affords the chance to be seen in the broader context of the Mexican Modernist movement. I will focus primarily on Frida’s work for the sake of this discussion. 

Her style appears to combine traditional representation with a kind of illustration in order to convey her vision. This hyper-representation enables a unique individualized form of Surrealism. But it is achieved in a way that appears both lucid and effortless. She combines autobiographical and cultural symbology in a unique synthesis that could be described as radical. Sometimes described as magical realism or new objectivity, contemporary artists and critics such as Andre Breton and Bertram D. Wolfe describe Kahlo’s work as individualized Surrealism. To me this challenge to compartmentalize her work reflects her individuality and independence from convention. Perhaps her style is best described as combining realism with surrealistic elements, folk art, violence and death.

Today Frida Kahlo is celebrated as an international artist but she is also seen as quintessentially Mexican. What are some of her influences? 

Following the revolution, Mexicanidad rejected colonialist elitism with its European bias. Indigenous cultural traditions were Kahlo’s passion and inheritance and became critical subject material for her, along with her artist husband Diego Rivera. But Kahlo’s expression combines a unique individualised expression that is particularly poignant today because it also conveys triumph over adversity. Her tragic road accident at age eighteen meant for life long disability. Today we value diverse cultural groups more and more and historical figures such as Kahlo spearhead the achievement of not only women artists but also that of disability. Through her artistic vision she is able to confront stereotypes and change them in the eyes of future generations.