Immersing in Frida

 On Thursday I went to the Mexico City neighborhood of Polanco to see an audiovisual presentation called "Frida, la Experiencia Inmersiva".  

This is third of these "immersive" shows that I have attended in Mexico City.  I previously saw shows about Van Gogh and the Impressionists, and they were very enjoyable.  I thought that the Frida show was not nearly as good.

First of all, at the risk of incurring the wrath of her admirers, I have to admit that I am not a big fan of Frida Kahlo.  Given the almost cultic popularity that the painter enjoys, I would have to say that she is overrated.  There are other female artists from Mexico of considerable talent who are virtually unknown in other countries.  I really think that Frida's celebrity comes more from her life story than from her talent.  Her short life was packed with enough sorrow, romance, pain, scandal, drugs, booze, sex and tragedy to fill a half dozen Mexican soap operas.  There are some who say that she was a self-absorbed egotist.  The fact that almost all of her paintings are self-portraits makes me wonder if that might not be true.

Regardless of your opinion of Frida, I think you would have to agree that the commercialization of her name and image has reached ridiculous proportions.  Her face is seen in the tourist markets on everything from tee-shirts to refrigerator magnets to dolls to handbags.  Her unibrowed, mustachioed visage has reached the point of being a cliche.

And I am sure that Ms. Kahlo, an avowed Communist, would be aghast to see how much money enterprising capitalists are making off of her fame.  Even the "Casa Azul", the house where she was born and died, charges more for admission than any other museum in the city.  And a ticket for this immersive show costs 400 pesos (20 U.S. dollars), far beyond the means of the average Mexican.  

Anyway, given the limited scope of her artwork, I found the show quite slow, at times boring.  They would take an item from one of her paintings... for example a chair... and hundreds of chairs would be projected on all the screens.  Slowly those chairs would fall away and then eventually another one of her paintings would appear.

 

It seems that the only person she ever painted besides herself was her cheating husband, famed muralist Diego Rivera.

I suppose that if you are a big fan of Frida, you might enjoy this show.

Otherwise, I would give it a pass.