A few weeks ago we went up to the Frida Kahlo exhibition at the Bendigo Art Gallery. It was a beautiful, mild autumn afternoon and the leaves were just starting to turn, owing to our warmer than usual autumn this year.
Bendigo Art Gallery often has really good exhibitions, and this was no exception. Many of their exhibitions, like this one, are textiles based. There were certainly many costumes on display, but dress was just one part of Frida Kahlo’s conscious curation of her image as a daughter of Mexico, and her exploration of her place within her wider family.
Of course, the accident that she suffered as a young woman had a huge effect on the rest of her life, and the exhibition includes objects and explanations of her injuries and later surgery. It places her within the wider Latin American art movement of the time, which became drawn into the contemporary art scene in Europe as well. You come away with a sense of a rather tragic, but very astute fashioner of image and celebrity, long before Madonna and ‘influencers’ came along.
It’s on until Sunday 13 July 2025 so for once I’ve seen it weeks before it closes.
The Resident Judge of Port Phillip 
Frida was young (21), unknown as an artist, interestingly dressed and physically handicapped from polio. Rivera was not young (42), totally famous as an artist and looked like a dishevelled slob. So I was very attracted to Frida’s art because it was her way of using her life profitably, despite her dismal husband. I also admired her for organising asylum for Soviet leader Leon Trotsky and his wife, and accommodating them from 1937-9.
I hope Bendigo has her gorgeous Self Portrait and her scary Diego And I.