Issue link: http://papercitymagazine.uberflip.com/i/1542302
W hen Mari Carmen R a m í r e z w a s hired in 2001 as the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston's inaugural curator of Latin American art, she made it clear that her then-fledgling department would not be narrowly defined by the Mexican muralists, nor merely the pendant story of Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo. Instead, bold and rediscovered annals from the Southern continent began to be told — one that challenged the existing dialogue of modernism by focusing on players such as Gego, Joaquín Torres-García, Jesús Rafael The Cult of Frida Soto, Carlos Cruz-Diez, and Xul Solar. Flash forward a quarter of a century, and the MFAH's most influential department and arguably America's top curator of Latin American art is now ready to take on Frida Kahlo (1907-1954), presenting the artist in a way she has never b e e n s e e n before. "Frida: The Making of an Icon" o p e n s t h i s month at the MFAH's Law Building — an expansive, y e a r s - i n - t h e - m a k i n g b l o c k b u s t e r that promises to lure both scholars and the art-curious public to Houston. After all, this is the show's only U.S. stop before it heads to London's Tate Modern this summer. Delving deeply into the museum's own archives as well as those of the Museo Frida Kahlo in Mexico City, Ramírez's exhibition brings forth a portrait of not only the painter herself (via 35 career-spanning Kahlo works) but also nearly 80 additional artists across five generations whose creations dialogue with or embrace the intimate art and dramatic life of the legendary Kahlo. Her unique power to triumph over tragedy resonates across decades, sparking activism accompanied by image-making, from the Chicana/Chicano movement to feminism, gay rights, and BIPOC identity causes. Though she was once eclipsed in renown by her art-star husband Rivera, the cult of Frida has, after her death, made her a brand name far beyond art-world circles, seizing the popular consciousness to even overtake the fame of Warhol. Our appetite for global Kahlo merch is truly insatiable, as the exhibition underscores in a cheeky section displaying 200 objects devoted to "Fridamania." Exhibition-goers will be rewarded by not only an encounter with Kahlo's compelling transformation of personal pain into visceral, often mystical canvases but also the ensuing half-century of art making by a rich banquet of artists she inspired, both known and underknown, including Judy Chicago, Kiki Smith, Carrie Mae Weems, Catherine Opie, Miriam Schapiro, ORLAN, Leonor Fini, Manuel Álvarez Bravo, Yasumasa Morimura, Gronk, and Houston's Delilah Montoya. Also included, naturally, are works by Diego Rivera and Nickolas Muray, the latter, a lover as well as creator of Kahlo's most unforgettable photographic portraits. January 19 – May 17, mfah.org. Frida Kahlo's Diego and I, 1949, at MFAH. Nickolas Muray's Frida with her Pet Eagle, Coyoacán, 1939, at MFAH. COLLECTION EDUARDO F. COSTANTINI. © 2025 BANCO DE MEXICO DIEGO RIVERA & FRIDA KAHLO MUSEUM TRUST, MEXICO, D.F. / ARTISTS RIGHTS SOCIETY, NEW YORK. COLLECTION MFAH. © NICKOLAS MURAY PHOTO ARCHIVES.