Kunstforum, Vienna, 01. 09. – 05. 12. 2010.

In autumn 2010, the Bank Austria Kunstforum is presenting the first ever comprehensive Frida Kahlo retrospective in Austria. The myth surrounding the Mexican artist has taken on global format; Frida is an icon with star character: an identification figure of Mexican culture, forerunner of the feminist movement, a brand promoted in a mega-merchandising machine, glitteringly exotic film subject for the Hollywood cinema.

Kahlo’s art is inseparably tied in with her life. Paintings and drawings are not only the mirror of her life history, which was marked by physical and mental affliction – Frida suffered the whole of her life from the injuries caused by a horrific bus accident.
During the last years of her life Frida was confined to her bed. Her oeuvre in painting and the graphic arts comprises one of the most complex chapters in the period between the wars, between Neue Sachlichkeit – New Objectivity – and surrealism. During the 1920s she created graceful and delicate self-portraits, oriented on the figural ideal of Renaissance painting.