Immersing viewers in Frida Kahlo’s life
Exhibition is last in trilogy envisioned by Italian digital artist that began with Van Gogh show
The artist who is arguably the world’s most famous female painter is getting the immersive treatment in Toronto.
“Frida: Immersive Dream” will highlight the life and work of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo in an exhibit opening March.
Svetlana Dvoretsky, co-founder of producer Lighthouse Immersive, said in an interview that the Kahlo show is part of a trilogy envisioned by Italian digital artist Massimiliano Siccardi when he started working with the company two years ago on its “Immersive Van Gogh” exhibit.
Dutch painter van Gogh is the first part; Austrian artist Gustav Klimt, subject of “Immersive Klimt: Revolution,” the second and now, Kahlo the third.
“Each artist represents a revolution,” Dvoretsky said.
Van Gogh pioneered the technique of “impasto,” creating texture by laying on paint in thick layers, in his work while Klimt was part of an avant-garde cultural movement in Vienna.
As for Kahlo, she was a revolutionary as well as revolutionary artist, Dvoretsky said.
“She was intrigued by the communist party, by the (Mexican) revolution, by what Lenin and Marx were espousing at the time; she was marching in parades with people who wanted to change the regime and so on and so forth. To me, she’s an extraordinary woman.”
She’s also a popular one as far as famous artists go.
Just this month, a self-portrait of Kahlo, “Diego y yo” or “Diego and I,” which shows the artist with an image of husband Diego Rivera on her forehead, sold for $34.9 million (U.S.) in a Sotheby’s sale, the most expensive work by a Latin American artist sold at auction.
Kahlo — renowned for her bold, surrealist paintings as well as her colourful personal style, including her unibrow — got the Hollywood treatment in 2002 when Salma Hayek starred as her in “Frida,” which won Oscars for Best Makeup and Best Original Score.
Though Rivera was the more famous artist during their lifetimes, Kahlo has become revered not only as a painter, but as a feminist icon. And as with van Gogh, part of the fascination has to do with the troubles she endured when she was alive.
A bus-streetcar crash in 1925 left Kahlo with serious injuries that caused lifelong problems but also marked the beginning of her art, as she began producing self-portraits while she recovered. She also had part of her right leg amputated later in life due to gangrene and when she died of a pulmonary embolism in 1954, there was speculation about a drug overdose.
“She was absolutely full of life, but her life was a very serious mix of pain and love,” Dvoretsky said. “And what she did as an artist, she was very open and honest about everything. She was not politically correct. She was out there.”
Dvoretsky figures that part of Kahlo’s current fame has to do with rising interest in extraordinary women generally.
“How difficult that would have been for her to be next to Diego, someone who was so extraordinarily famous … and she just started to paint,” Dvoretsky said.
“It took so much courage to say, ‘Yes, I’m an artist; yes, I’m talented; yes, I’m worthy; yes, I can do it.’ ”
Some of Kahlo’s most famous paintings will be included in “Immersive Dream,” such as “The Two Fridas,” “The Wounded Deer” and “Diego and I,” along with photographs, drawings and excerpts of documentaries about her.
As with “Immersive Van Gogh,” the Kahlo show will feature animated projections by Siccardi and a musical score by Luca Longobardi. “FRIDA: IMMERSIVE DREAM” OPENS MARCH 31 AT THE LIGHTHOUSE IMMERSIVE GALLERY AT 1 YONGE ST. TICKETS ARE ON SALE AT IMMERSIVEFRIDA.COM