FOR THE LOVE OF FRIDA 2023 WALL CALENDAR (SQUARE)

Product Information

The show, created by Italian film producer and exhibition creator Massimiliano Siccardi and featuring original music by Italian composer Luca Longobardi, is quite different than the Van Gogh — it offers more of a narrative. “Immersive Van Gogh” features an abstract mashup of meditative, melancholic imagery that’s alternately soothing and haunting. By contrast, “Immersive Frida Kahlo” tells a story — if by necessity. Unlike with Van Gogh, the artist’s images are not in the public domain. So the producers had to license images, and they supplemented the work with photographs of Kahlo and others in her life, such as her husband, Diego Rivera, and her family. Kahlo divorced Rivera in 1939. They did not stay divorced for long, remarrying in 1940. The couple continued to lead largely separate lives, both becoming involved with other people over the years. Artistic Career Kahlo was asked to paint a portrait of Luce and Kahlo's mutual friend, actress Dorothy Hale, who had committed suicide earlier that year by jumping from a high-rise building. The painting was intended as a gift for Hale's grieving mother. Rather than a traditional portrait, however, Kahlo painted the story of Hale's tragic leap. While the work has been heralded by critics, its patron was horrified at the finished painting. 'The Two Fridas' (1939)

The 9th TarraWarra Biennial has been curated by Dr Léuli Eshrāghi, and is titled ua usiusi faʻavaʻasavili, a Samoan proverb that means ‘the canoe obeys the wind’. It will feature newly commissioned works by 15 artists/artist groups focused on the interconnectedness of the peoples of Australia, Asia and the Great Ocean at the TarraWarra Museum of Art (1 April – 16 July). May UNSW Galleries has a bumper mid-year program, with highlights including David Sequeira: History & Infinity and Renee So: Provenance (18 August – 19 November, free). This is a loving portrayal of Kahlo, and it cheers on her rebelliousness and non-conformity so convincingly that it’s impossible not to join in. It covers all the points you might expect from a 2023 documentary about her life and work. There are queer readings of her art and conversations about women in Mexico in the early 20th century, attempting to reconcile the independence that was promised to them with the social and cultural obligations of the era. (There is a brilliant detour into the life of her friend, the photographer and activist Tina Modotti, who experienced a very contemporary-sounding humiliation in the press in 1929.) Kahlo showed this painting at the Sixth Annual Exhibition of the San Francisco Society of Women Artists, the city where she was living with Rivera at the time. In the work, painted two years after the couple married, Kahlo lightly holds Rivera’s hand as he grasps a palette and paintbrushes with the other — a stiffly formal pose hinting at the couple’s future tumultuous relationship. The work now lives at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. 'Henry Ford Hospital' (1932)Never a traditional union, Kahlo and Rivera kept separate, but adjoining homes and studios in San Angel. She was saddened by his many infidelities, including an affair with her sister Cristina. In response to this familial betrayal, Kahlo cut off most of her trademark long dark hair. Desperately wanting to have a child, she again experienced heartbreak when she miscarried in 1934. Much of the programming in February in NSW connects with Sydney WorldPride 2023, with major Queer exhibitions curated by UNSW Galleries, NAS Gallery, Australian Design Centre and Powerhouse Museum, among others. Wrapping up the year on a high note will be Fairy Tales at GOMA, a high-voltage, multidisciplinary and at times immersive exhibition that explores how fairy tales from across the world have held our fascination for centuries through art and culture. Kahlo reconnected with Rivera in 1928. He encouraged her artwork, and the two began a relationship. During their early years together, Kahlo often followed Rivera based on where the commissions that Rivera received were. In 1930, they lived in San Francisco, California. They then went to New York City for Rivera’s show at the Museum of Modern Art and later moved to Detroit for Rivera’s commission with the Detroit Institute of Arts.

But a new documentary series about the Mexican reveals the truth behind her life is every bit as rich and complicated as the woman herself. Artist Frida Kahlo was considered one of Mexico's greatest artists who began painting mostly self-portraits after she was severely injured in a bus accident. Kahlo later became politically active and married fellow communist artist Diego Rivera in 1929. She exhibited her paintings in Paris and Mexico before her death in 1954. Family, Education and Early Life Worth mentioning also is UQ Art Museum’s group exhibition, We Are Electric: Extraction, Extinction and Post-Carbon Futures centring eco-critical conversations around energy futures and extinction (14 February– 24 June), and Patricia Piccinini ’s No Fear of Depths at Cairns Art Gallery (18 February – 16 April), showing works resulting from a Gallery-initiated research residency in Far North Queensland, where Piccinini created a major body of work exploring the specificity and fecundity of tropical life forms in the region.There are some versions that say that Diego helped her. That…in the family is a taboo. Nobody talks about that. If your companion of all your life said, ‘I am tired, I really want to go, help me.’ Well maybe you try…”

Two interesting exhibitions that explore First Nations dialogues during May, are Gone Fishing at GOMA – profiling Indigenous Australian works that relate to the cultural, social and recreational activity of ‘fishing’, highlighting current topical discussions around rising seawaters, the depletion of the Great Artesian Basin and native title versus land rights (20 May – 21 January 2024, free).

IMMERSIVE EXPERIENCE

Immersive Frida Kahlo” will run solo in the Amoeba Music building for its first two weeks, at which point it will switch off every other day there with “ Immersive Van Gogh” through at least the end of May. Given the popularity of the two shows, an extension is likely. After Kahlo’s death, the feminist movement of the 1970s led to renewed interest in her life and work, as Kahlo was viewed by many as an icon of female creativity. Frida Kahlo's Most Famous Paintings

While she never considered herself a surrealist, Kahlo befriended one of the primary figures in that artistic and literary movement, Andre Breton, in 1938. That same year, she had a major exhibition at a New York City gallery, selling about half of the 25 paintings shown there. Kahlo also received two commissions, including one from famed magazine editor Clare Boothe Luce, as a result of the show. Kahlo's father, Wilhelm (also called Guillermo), was a German photographer who had immigrated to Mexico where he met and married her mother Matilde. She had two older sisters, Matilde and Adriana, and her younger sister, Cristina, was born the year after Kahlo.

Sign up and get exclusive special deals

Around the age of six, Kahlo contracted polio, which caused her to be bedridden for nine months. While she recovered from the illness, she limped when she walked because the disease had damaged her right leg and foot. Her father encouraged her to play soccer, go swimming, and even wrestle — highly unusual moves for a girl at the time — to help aid in her recovery. Kahlo received a commission from the Mexican government for five portraits of important Mexican women in 1941, but she was unable to finish the project. She lost her beloved father that year and continued to suffer from chronic health problems. Despite her personal challenges, her work continued to grow in popularity and was included in numerous group shows around this time. Irreverent … Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, wedding portrait, 21 August 1929. Photograph: Victor Reyes/BBC/Rogan Productions Up north, Cairns Art Gallery is going ‘troppo’ with an exhibition by the late Peter Kingston and Euan Macleod titled Travelling North (21 January – 5 March), celebrating the unique weather patterns, landscapes and people of the tropical zone. February Andy Warhol and Keith Haring. Image: Party Honouring Claes Oldenburg For Opening of His New Exhibit at the Guggenheim Museum by Ron Galella.