Animartists internationalEditor: Moschoula Kuri
Translator: Athanasopoulou Panagiota
Magdalena del Carmen Frida Kahlo y Calderon was born in Coyoacan, Mexico on July 6th 1907 and died on July 13th 1954. Her being had two faces, one created to reflect an Indian woman and the second to reflect a European woman, something that fascinated Breton and Picasso. The painter who lived through her work, marked by pain and depression, shines as a ‘revolutionary’ woman for the standards of her time.
The play Frida’s pornography, which is inspired by her life, made me search the life of this untamed woman. The director Kiriaki Spanou dares to re-enact on stage her chaotic world of pain and her resistance. It is written for four actors, two men and two women.
Frida’s pornography is the pornography of the inside, the exposure of the pain that cast a shadow over her throbbing flesh. The plot of the play is particularly interesting: a modern girl, an artist apprentice, becomes fascinated by Frida Kahlo to the point of obsession. The fragmented representation of Frida’s life expresses her own point of view about the life of the Mexican artist. Kahlo’s sick body, her love for Diego, her unfulfilled desire to bear children and of course painting constitute the axes of her life. The modern girl is so passionately fixated on her personality that she becomes Frida’s imaginary childhood friend.
The fact that the language of the play ‘refers to the inside’ is worth mentioning. The representation that takes place on stage is a performance that studies the body and the violence it has been put through.
“Life turned against me with a vengeance. It could have dealt me better cards. The deck has been disastrous for me. A black tarot on the body,” Frida says.
By paraphrasing Antonen Arto’s thoughts on the theater we consider that it could be expressed as follows: “it seems that the only reason art was created was to express man and his desires to the point that people magnetically meet their destiny, not to submit to it but to face it”. They are to confront their fate.
In my opinion Frida was a fascinating figure and she keeps on fascinating people, when they read her story and observe her work with attention. Two facts were the milestones in her life, bringing her against fate. On one hand the Mexican revolution that marked her birth. On the other, her illness and the accident that cost her her physical wholeness. These marks were imprinted on her lifestyle and on her projects. Her free and emancipated spirit was expressed through her relationship with the left, art and romance.
While her body was fading away, she conveyed the fire in her soul through her work and life. Frida had the impression that her body was a magnet for every plague. Although she wanted to become a doctor she turned to painting instead, focusing mainly on self-portraits.
“I paint myself because I am alone most of the time and mine is the face I know best”.
“The body always betrays you”, she used to say, as if she waited the confirmation that came on July 13th 1954. The official cause of death was pulmonary embolism. There are rumors to this day that insist on overdose of sedative pills. Her last words written on her diary were: “I hope the ending is peaceful and I hope I never come back again. Frida ”.
“Burn this house
Burn it blue
Heart running on empty
So lost without you
But the night sky blooms with fire
And the burning bed floats higher
And she’s free to fly…”