Affordable little slices of the Kahlo mystique
The V&A is expecting big crowds at its Frida Kahlo: Making
Her Self Up exhibition, which opens on June 16. The Mexican artist, who survived disability and crippling injury in the most stylish way imaginable, has mythical status. Portrayed by Salma Hayek in the 2002 biopic
Frida, and the subject of brand disputes from tequila to Barbie dolls, her image is unmistakable. In the art market, her paintings have sold for up to $8million, and a lost work, La Mesa Herida (the wounded table, 1940) last seen in the Fifties on its way to Russia, has recently been valued at $20million by an investigator on its trail.
The V&A show, though, focuses not on her paintings but on her wardrobe and possessions. Any viewers wishing to purchase something of the Kahlo mystique at a lower price level have just a 15-minute walk to
Michael Hoppen in Chelsea, where a rich mixture of recent and highly original photographs of Kahlo’s possessions by Japanese photographer Ishiuchi Miyako is on show. Priced at £10,000, Miyako’s images are being exhibited alongside photographs of Kahlo by Lucienne Bloch, Imogen Cunningham and Lola Alvarez Bravo. Hoppen has obtained some later prints, which can be bought for between £3,500 and £5,500.