Frida Kahlo exhibition coming to Bendigo

AN Australian-first exhibition featuring objects and artworks by Mexican artist Frida Kahlo is coming to the Bendigo Art Gallery. 

Premier and Member for Bendigo East Jacinta Allan today announced the State Government had secured the exhibition, Frida Kahlo: In her own image, through Visit Victoria and the Major Events Fund. 

It will run from Saturday 15 March to Sunday 13 July next year. 

“Frida Kahlo is one of the most iconic figures in modern art and bringing her works to Bendigo Art Gallery is yet another win for Bendigo – attracting visitors and art lovers to our great city,” Ms Allan said. 

Bendigo Art Gallery director Jessica Bridgfoot said it was an honour to have the opportunity to tell the story of one of the world’s most mythologised artists. 

“This remarkable collection rarely travels outside Mexico and has never before been seen in Australia,” Ms Bridgfoot said. 

“Kahlo’s much-loved home, Casa Azul, now the Museo Frida Kahlo, was the embodiment of her art, philosophies and design influences. 

“Frida Kahlo: In her own image will shed a light on Kahlo’s carefully crafted appearance in the world, and how her vibrant clothing, poetic use of makeup and adornment constructed her captivating public image – and also addressed global political issues, cultural identity and how her physical disabilities both defied and defined her.” 

Items will include traditional Mexican garments worn by Kahlo, a collection of her favourite cosmetics, medical corsets worn after spinal surgeries and hand-painted by the artist, and a self-portrait drawing depicting an x-ray through Kahlo’s clothing to her corset and injured body underneath. 

Kahlo was just 47 when she died in 1954. Many of her works depicted her struggle with chronic pain which resulted from a bus accident when she was 18. 

The exhibition was conceptualised and curated by Circe Henestrosa, fashion curator and head of the School of Fashion at LASALLE College of the Arts Singapore, with advising curator Gannit Ankori and Henry and Lois Foster, director and chief curator respectively of the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University. 

Bendigo Art Gallery curatorial manager Lauren Ellis is the managing curator for the exhibition in Australia. 

It is the latest instalment in the gallery’s Bendigo International Collections series.