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• Arts and Culture
• International
• North America
• Paint and Sculpture
• 09 / 15 / 2007

An international symposium on Frida Khalo entitled, A Ribbon Wrapped Around a Bomb, celebrating the centennial of Kahlos birth and the 50th anniversary of her husband, Diego Rivera, kicked off Mexican Culture week being celebrated in Cuba.

Dr. Teresa del Conde, a researcher from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), opened the two-day forum with a lecture entitled Rereading Frida.The UNAM professor spoke about Khalos relationship with Rivera ""one of care, interdependence and mutual admiration"" and her significance as a symbol. "[Frida] was not the best painter in the Americas, but one of the most famous, a truly cult icon [...] She is not only a symbol, but also a sign; a woman who suffered, but whose artist work achieved a perfection rarely seen and in which she never believed.

"Frida Kahlo was born July 6, 1907. She wanted to be a physician, but a painful car accident, which would leave its mark throughout her life, left her a permanent convalescence and awoken her desire to paint. It also led her to strengthen her eternal union with Diego Rivera, the first person who believed in the value of her paintings.

Frida had leftist affiliations (the Communist Party was another of her loves). She was a friend of Trotsky and a close friend of Tina Modotti, whose husband travelled with her to the United States and Europe to exhibit their works. She fascinated French writer Andre Breton, one of the leaders of the surrealism movement, when he visited Mexico. Khalo died on July 13, 1954.

Dr. del Conde, a first cousin of Antonio "El Cuate" del Conde who supported the Cuban revolutionaries of the Granma yacht expedition, recalled the legend of a sensuous woman who also left the imprint of countless lovers.

"[Fridas] paintings were at the same time absolutely personal, naïve and deeply metaphoric; derived from her impassioned sensitivity and from several events that marked her life," said del Conde.

"Im not a Frida maniac "said the author of Frida Kahlo. Una mirada crítica"; above all, I appreciate her importance. Frida mania is just marketing; a money-making scheme that wrecks her image."

Source: By Sonia Sánchez, Granma