Frida Kahlo's Enduring Popularity: Why Tate Modern is Raising Eyebrows

Tobias Ostrander, a curator of Frida: The Making of an Icon, which opens in June, said the difficulties securing loans were part of the reason the gallery had “slightly” fewer Kahlo paintings than two decades ago. “In general the [36] works were very specifically chosen to address certain themes but you know, there are ones we have tried for that people won’t loan,” Ostrander said. “Madonna is someone who did loan in 2005 but won’t loan now, for example.” There had been hopes that Kahlo’s record-breaking self-portrait, which was sold for £41.8 million in November, would be part of the exhibition. Ostrander said Tate was still trying to secure a loan of El sueño (La cama) from the artwork’s unidentified buyer but admitted it was “unlikely”. Catherine Wood, Tate Modern’s chief curator, said in 2005 it had been “quite early” to give Kahlo a full retrospective, adding that this year’s exhibition was more focused on how the Mexican artist had “shaped the canon” for future generations. Scores of works by about 80 artists influenced by Kahlo are due to be displayed alongside many of the Mexican artist’s most acclaimed pieces, including Untitled (Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird) and Self-Portrait in a Velvet Dress. Wood said the exhibition would trace how Kahlo rose to become the “global phenomenon that she is today”, adding: “When we showed her she was one of the relatively few female artists who were being shown in museums and entering the pretty much all-male canon. “It is very interesting at this point to look at how she has shaped the canon for future generations.” • The scandal of the missing Frida Kahlo masterpieces Kahlo, who died in 1954 aged 47, was relatively unknown during her lifetime and often in the shadow of her husband and fellow artist, Diego Rivera. Until the 1990s, the record price for one of her works at auction was under $500,000. Interest in Kahlo was turbo-charged this century, perhaps helped by a biopic in 2002 starring Salma Hayek, with her self-portraits in particular increasingly drawing the attention of institutions and collectors. Buying or securing the loan of a Kahlo masterpiece is further complicated by Mexico’s refusal to allow any of her artworks to be exported without authorisation. However, there is plenty of Kahlo merchandise to be bought. One section of Tate Modern’s exhibition will focus on “Fridamania” and the artist’s “transformation into a global brand”. More than 200 objects “generated by the mass-market production of Frida Kahlo merchandise” — which has seen her image appear on thousands of items from period pads to Tequila bottles — will also be on display. Ostrander said while Kahlo was a communist — one of her many affairs was with Leon Trotsky — the artist was “clear about her image being a product or having an exchange value”. “One forgets that she was producing these self-portraits to sell,” he added. The curator said the exhibition would be “self-conscious about the idea of a blockbuster, it will look critically at why we are so obsessed with Frida, what are we buying, what does she symbolise”. He added: “It will be interesting because that Fridamania section will be right next to the [Tate Modern] shop.”