In 1984 the Mexican government declared the art of Frida Kahlo to be an ‘artistic monument of the nation’ – that is, her works were no longer permitted to leave Mexico except on temporary loan. ‘Fridamania’ had already taken root on both sides of the Atlantic and since then both Kahlo’s art and her visage have attained a level of fame that few 20th-century painters can claim. The scarcity of Kahlo’s work on the art market has meant that large-scale retrospectives are rare; curators wanting to present her in a new light have to get creative. This exhibition at Tate Modern, which has travelled from the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, includes some 30 works by Kahlo but is every bit as interested in her influence on artists around the world (25 June–3 January 2027). As well as examining her path to becoming a pop-culture phenomenon, it brings together work by generations of artists to explore how artists and activists have been inspired by both Kahlo’s art and her personality – or at least, by their sense of it.
Find out more from the Tate’s website.
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