A new exhibition that pays tribute to the memory of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo has opened at Istanbul’s prominent cultural center Yapı Kredi bomontiada. Organized with the slogan "Frida Kahlo Today," the show "Free’da" brings together 33 unique works by 30 artists rendering a different aspect of the surrealist painter.

Kahlo, who is thought to be a representative of the avant-garde surrealist style, was an exceptional figure in art history both characteristically and professionally. Born on July 6, 1907, in Coyoacan, Mexico, Frida grew up in her family’s house, Casa Azul, meaning the Blue House, which serves as a museum dedicated to her now. While his father was a German photographer, her mother was a "mestiza," a person of mixed European and Indigenous American ancestry.

She was disabled due to polio in her childhood, which caused her right leg to grow thinner than the left one. After her recovery, Frida, unfortunately, continued to limp. To conceal her gait, she took advantage of maxi skirts that would be largely associated with her in the later period.

Despite her poor health in the early period of her life, Frida was a promising student headed for medical school. However, a severe bus accident left Frida in lifelong pain at the age of 18. After the accident, she was confined to bed for three months and returned to her childhood interest: painting.

Her parents supported her painting and even made a special easel that allowed her to paint on the bed. With oil paints that her father lent and a mirror placed above her easel, Frida mostly drew portraits of herself. Once the artist explained why: "I paint myself because I am often alone and I am the subject I know best."

Her early paintings and correspondence show that she drew inspiration from European artists, in particular, Renaissance masters such as Sandro Botticelli, and, avant-garde movements such as cubism. Blending autobiographical elements and a mix of realism and fantasy in her works, Frida painted never-ending pursuits and transformed her misfortune into works of bold color and emblematic strength.

In the later period of her life, in which she went through major experiences and responded with excellent decisions, her artistic style also changed. In her later works, she increasingly drew inspiration from Mexican folk art and mostly combined elements from pre-Columbian and colonial periods of Mexican art.

She attained international fame after her death in 1954, and after the 1970s rose as a feminist icon.

Strong, libertarian spirit

The "Free’da" exhibition, offering an insight into the life and artistic style of Kahlo, is carried out by Frida Media Agency. Desiring to open the very first exhibition honoring the Mexican painter in Türkiye, the agency made an open call for artists to join the exhibition. The participating artists are asked to contemplate what the life of Frida would be like if she lived today and how she would produce her artwork before they create their pieces for the show. While some of them reinterpret the self-portraits of Kahlo, in which she depicted the darkness within her by using Mexico’s bright colors, some utilized various art forms to address different parts of her life.

With their works, the artists both present a chance to have a deeper look at the life and art of Kahlo and build a bridge between the traditional and contemporary, the past and future. The income from the exhibition will also be given to the "Art Ambassadors" project of the Art for Goodness Association. In the project, supported by the Swedish Consulate, 14 artists from seven provinces of Anatolia were chosen and will be provided with art education.

Curator Feride Çelik arranged 33 chosen works by 30 artists across three sections in the exhibition. The first part references the early works of Frida, when she was bedridden, comprising of the artists' interpretations of her self-portraits in their own mediums.

At the entrance of this section, a large oil painting by Seher Bediha Yılmaz welcomes art enthusiasts. Depicting Frida sitting in a room donning one of her iconic skirts with flowers in her hand, the painting is not totally completed like Frida’s very own life. Believing that the Mexican painter could have produced much more work if she were to have lived longer, Yılmaz wants to make the viewers feel sorrow over the demise of the artist, as well.

On a parallel wall across Yılmaz's painting, another work pictures Frida with vivid yellow, green, and blue hues along with gray tones. "İçimizdeki Frida" ("The Frida Inside Us") features two Fridas looking at each other. With her back turned, it is as if Frida is facing herself thanks to the works in this exhibition. Bayır says that she created the digital print by imagining Kahlo looking at her future images.

Right across, another artwork offers a Frida silhouette with collages of vibrant pieces. "Frida V2.0" is a pop of color by Selin Timuçin that shows beauty is not perfection but a search for meaning. The digital collage work put forward the idea that a piece seen as a flaw by most can be the center of beauty. Timuçin uses pieces taken from the works of Frida as the building blocks of her artwork and creates a digital representation with a different meaning as a whole.

Thunder between Frida and Diego

The works in the second and third sections of the exhibition have been placed deliberately by the curator to symbolize the emotional turmoil in Frida Kahlo's love-hate relationship with Diego Rivera.

Rivera wanted to play a very active role in the transformation of Mexico's identity after the country's revolution and he met Kahlo in 1928 at a gathering of the Mexican Communist party. Diego, who was 20 years older than her and already famous for his artistic creations, impressed Kahlo at first sight as he maintained his Mexican identity even though he had traveled to Paris and met many pioneer artists of cubism such as Pablo Picasso.

Despite getting married a year later, in 1929, Diego had many extramarital affairs and children. Although each one of them deeply affected Frida, the one that left the deepest scar was his affair with her sister. Her bleeding scars appeared in her 1935 dated painting "Unos Cuantos Piquetitos (A Few Small Nips)." The psychological torture is so powerful that she likens her pain to a woman who was murdered by her boyfriend, and ended up saying to reporters "I just give her a couple of little nips." Likewise, we see Diego as a knife-wielding killer whose shirt is stained by Kahlo’s blood.

Between 1930 and 1934, the couple went to San Francisco where Diego was commissioned to paint a mural at the Pacific Stock Exchange Luncheon Club and the San Francisco Art Institute and to continue to pursue their ideals for the construction of their new Mexican identity.

However, during these times, she suffered several miscarriages due to her poor health. Her 1932 dated work titled "Henry Ford Hospital" revealed her experience with all its concreteness.

In addition to her physical pain, Frida struggled to deal with many binary concepts in one identity. European influence ​​surrounded her as she tried to preserve her Mexican roots.

She also strived to keep her femininity alive in the face of Diego’s toxic masculinity. Especially in her later paintings, she used this as a concept of mockery, depicting herself in a suit, with clearly visible facial hair.

Regarding these, some specific works in the exhibition reflect all of her life stories. Ufuk Güneş Taşkın's work "Sonsuz Beden" ("Unbounded Body"), created by metal, steel nails and sheet metal depicts the black silhouette of a pregnant Frida with a pink neon light shining on her belly. The concepts of pregnancy, birth and death affected Frida's art as well as her life. Her body, which is transformed by pain and love, is the source of her creativity, and art is a way of conveying her experiences.

This installment, created by the artist through the metaphor of the body, appears as a representation of her larger-than-life soul and creativity that does not fit into her body. The work also questions whether if Frida had lived today, she might have gotten pregnant thanks to medical advances.

Loya Kader Öztürkmen's "Self-portrait" pays homage to Kahlo's "Two Fridas" painting. In the original painting, Frida depicts herself through two different duplications placed side-by-side: One with a European dress before meeting Diego, and then in local Mexican clothing after Diego. In a way, this illustrates the dilemmas that Frida faced throughout her life, with the concrete idea of ​​a doppelganger. In Öztürkmen's recreation, the scissors cut the artery of the Frida on the left, and that merges with the photo of Diego at the bottom. Frida's style, which she also used with cut pieces and blood images, is also reflected in this contemporary interpretation of the artist. The work, which is a symbol of painful love, is in serious eye contact with the spectator, almost causing pain.

Berna Bal's ink and acrylic work on paper "Bir Rüya" ("A Dream) shows Frida uniting with nature after her death. It basically symbolizes the Mexican culture's celebration of death. Therefore, Frida becomes sublime and completes her mission of womanhood by becoming a part of the soil.

There is no doubt that one of the works that will be photographed the most in the exhibition is "Who are you?" by Özge Günaydın. The mirror installation on a duvet is a nod to Frida lying in her bed and watching the mirror on the ceiling after the accident. This chained installation also shows Frida's feeling of imprisonment due to her disabilities. The work asks the spectator to decide "who they are" through items that are symbolic to Frida whose identity was formed by physical pain and disability.

The exhibition will be open until Aug. 14 for those who wish to see it. Surely, these different interpretations of Frida Kahlo will help delve into her life story and find their own inner "Frida."