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©2025 BANCO DE MEXICO DIEGO RIVERA & FRIDA KAHLO MUSEUM TRUST, MEXICO, D.F./ ARTISTS RIGHTS SOCIETY, NEW YORK : The Cult of Frida T he Museum of Fine Arts, Houston's most influential department and arguably America's top curator of Latin American art, Mari Carmen Ramírez, has taken on Frida Kahlo (1907-1954), presenting the artist in a way she has never been seen before. "Frida: The Making of an Icon" at the MFAH delivers an expansive, years-in-the- making blockbuster 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. Through May 17, mfah.org. Catherine D. Anspon The Art of Portraiture As a city of significant c o l l e c t o r s ( m a n y, regulars on the Artnews Top 200 list), Dallas is beginning to rival Miami as a place where rarified private treasures are generously shared with the public. (Read this section for intel on compelling fair-time viewing at The Warehouse, The Power Station, and Green Family Art Foundation.) Aligned with Dallas Arts Month, the Carl & Marilynn Thoma Foundation unveils "Presence of Absence: Embodied Portraiture." The 60-plus works on view were plucked from the foundation's avant-garde holdings — talents including Jeffrey Gibson, who represented the U.S. at the 2024 Venice Five Painters + Remarkable Roxy D uring Dallas Arts Month, galleries step up with their programming. Here are two must sees. At Talley Dunn Gallery, "Roxy Paine: Overgrown Neuron" signals the New York-based sculptor's gallery debut. The internationally exhibited Paine is in nearly every museum collection you can name, from NYC's MoMA and San Francisco's SFMOMA to the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. What's unique about this show: It traces Paine's intensive hand- built process and his mastery over stainless steel, sans digital imagery or Frida Kahlo, Self-Portrait (in a Velvet Dress), 1926, at MFAH Andy Warhol, cycle1, 1985, at Thoma Foundation Below: Alexandria Wooldridge, Willow, 2026, at Kirk Hopper Fine Art foundry, as it follows his commission for the campus of UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas. One of the outliers here, the nearly 11-foot-wide Chart, 2024, underscores the artist's obsession with fungi. Through May 9, talleydunn.com. At Kirk Hopper Fine Art, noted guest curator Susie Kalil returns to organize "Five Painters: New Myths," an exhibition sparked by her 2025 turn as a juror for Stephen F. Austin State University School of Art, Nacodoches. Kalil curates associate professor Shaun Roberts and grad students Alexandria Wooldridge and Alberto Perez, joined by art-school alums Dagon Blank and Aarionne Hobbs. The stunning canvases displayed by this quintet — informed by Old Masters, especially the dramatic storytelling of the Renaissance and Baroque periods — embody the terrible beauty of our turbulent times. Kalil says, "Every generation has new myths. These artists are returning to mythologies — retelling them in ways that reflect where we are now." April 11 – May 16, kirkhopperfineart.com. Catherine D. Anspon Aarionne Hobbs, A Wicked Offering, 2024, at Kirk Hopper Fine Art Biennale; CBE RA Yinka Shonibare, whose Dutch wax-print, fabric-draped sculptures address colonialism; South African video pioneer/critic of Apartheid William Kentridge; set designer/installation master Robert Wilson, represented by a video of Lady Gaga channeling Ingres' Neoclassical portrait of Mademoiselle Caroline Riviere owned by the Louvre; Carrie Mae Weems known for her intimate photographic and video portraits of fierce femmes; and sound artists Cardiff & Miller, whose collaboration often features salvaged materials from the past including antique furniture and vintage rotary and retro phones. Through February 2027, thomafoundation.org. Catherine D. Anspon 67