Frida Khalo; Beyond the Myth, into the purses
Posted: 7/10/07
July 06 marked Frida Khalo’s centennial birthday. It also saw the opening of a massive exhibition of recently discovered sketches and keepsakes at Khalo’s former-family-home-turned-museum - The Blue House, in Coyoacan. According to NYT writer Elisabeth Malking,
“She became a Chicana heroine and an unintended purveyor of Mexican kitsch. She is an emblem of confessional painting at a time when nothing is intimate anymore. But this year, as Mexico celebrates the centenary of her birth, the largest retrospective ever of her work attempts to look beyond what Mexicans call Fridamania.”
Fair enough, but Fridamania is kind of awesome. I love that there are a million t-shirts and bags with Khalo’s glowering face emblazoned on them. I think it would be an honor to have thousands of Mexican women sporting my face on a grocery tote. In fact, it should probably be a fully registered purse category. If you’re going to have a shopping tote (and you should!), it may as well be a produce-aisle conversation starter. There’s a massive selection of handmade Frida purses at Etsy.com, and you can find a few at the Blue Ruin Gallery Shop. Or, you could always plan a trip to Mexico, whatever.