DANCING NEBULA

DANCING NEBULA
When the gods dance...

Monday, January 7, 2013

Frida Kahlo’s Closet is Opened 58 years After Her Death


Frida circa 1926, photo taken by her dad Guillermo.

By DIANA OLIVA CAVE

If you are a Frida Kahlo fan – and really, who isn’t – check out the new exhibit at the Frida Kahlo Museum in Mexico City.  It opened this past weekend and it takes us inside Frida’s long-locked closet.  

Apparently, when Frida died, her husband, the famous muralist, Diego Rivera wouldn’t let anyone enter her closet for fear that they would ruin what was inside.  When he died, their dear friend and patron, Dolores Olmedo, was charged with protecting the closet for 15 years after his death. But, then she decided to keep it locked even longer, until her death in 2002.

It was finally opened and museum curators have been hard at work going through and restoring items that they now have on display. The exhibit is an eye-opener for those who only know Frida through the Salma Hayek movie and from the pained, monobrowed self portraits that you can find adorning college dorm rooms and handbags alike.  Turns out that despite the pain Frida lived with her whole life and shared with the world through her paintings, she was also a bit of a fashionista.  

 

From the indigenous style dresses she wore to the red booted prosthetic leg, Frida used her clothes to hide her disabilities and to say something about her ethnicity.   


 

Read full story here and watch video interview with exhibit curator Circe Henestrosa below.

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