In the interest of full disclosure: I have been hopelessly enamored with the beautiful, communist, bisexual artist Frida Kahlo ever since I happened across -- and was shaken to the core by -- a print of her painting "Broken Column" (1944) in a Montreal art book shop back in 1979. I also wept uncontrollably when I saw the film "Frida" on a Europe-bound flight last month.
And so, this is going to be a terribly biased review of "Woman Surrealists in Mexico," a newly opened exhibition at the Bunkamura Museum in Shibuya. The show features some 130 drawings, paintings and photographs by seven female Mexican artists active from the 1930s through the 1960s. Foremost among them is that remarkable woman, Frida Kahlo (1907-1954).
There are almost 30 Kahlo treasures here, by far the most ever assembled in Japan. They are mostly oil and canvas paintings, and among them are many of the head-tilted-to-the-left, flat and bold self-portraits that Kahlo is best known for. In some of the pictures, there are monkeys on Kahlo's back -- and this is because she kept monkeys in her home. In others, there are flowers and ribbons in her hair -- and this is because Kahlo rejoiced in these traditional adornments. In one particularly poignant panel, "Moses," a baby in a basket floats down a river, surrounded by images of Aztec gods and Jesus and Hitler and Marx and Gandhi -- and this is because Kahlo had a miscarriage.