Saint Frida has landed in Brooklyn. “Frida Kahlo: Appearances Can Be Deceiving” is an expanded version of “Making Her Self Up,” an exhibition mounted last year by the Victoria & Albert Museum. Culled from the Casa Azul, Kahlo’s home in Mexico City, the London exhibition was the first comprehensive showing of its contents outside the artist’s native country. “Comprehensive,” in the case of the Brooklyn exhibition, is all but commensurate with “obsessive.” Upon her death in 1954, Kahlo’s former husband, the painter and muralist Diego Rivera, sealed up her personal belongings at Casa Azul, stipulating that they remain untouched until fifteen years after his passing. It wasn’t until 2003—forty-six years after Rivera’s death—that access was granted; it took another four years to complete the inventory. And quite the inventory it is, including, as it does, family photographs, hand-painted plaster corsets, an array of Mexican and Central American garments known as huipils, a pre-Columbian pendant, a bottle of Chanel No. 5 perfume, and a prosthetic leg with a customized ankle boot. Did you know Kahlo favored Revlon products? The company’s ebony eyebrow pencil, ca. 1948–54, is on display for visitors to marvel at.
And marvel they will. My religious analogy above may seem snarky, but Kahlo is widely revered as a cultural icon. She is, in fact, one of the most recognizable artists on the face