Like the Traditional Mexican Dresses She Usually Wore and Posed In, Her Distinctive Attire Can Be Considered in Symbolic Terms

FriDa Kahlo (Mexican, 1907–1954) / annE umLanD like the traditional Mexican dresses she usually wore and posed in, her distinctive attire can be considered in costume. Yet her dangling earring, delicately boned hands and face, and diminutive high- symbolic terms as a form of self-defining costume. heeled shoes—along with the numerous tendrils of cutoff hair that carpet the floor— send signals that conflict with those of the “The picture is certainly one of Frida’s best, aside from Barr’s overly saccharine close-cropped haircut and man’s suit. Like as well as an exceptional document,” wrote translation of the Spanish lyrics Kahlo had man ray’s photographs of Kahlo’s friend Lieutenant Edgar Kaufmann, Jr., to alfred H. carefully painted across the top of her canvas, and loyal supporter marcel Duchamp in the Barr, Jr., director of The museum of modern his exchange with Kaufmann is revealing.4 guise of his female alter ego rrose Sélavy, art, referring to Frida Kahlo’s Autorretrato it testifies to the early priority he placed on the painting presents us with an image of con pelo cortado (Self-Portrait with Cropped acquiring a work by Kahlo as an important someone posing, not attempting to pass, as Hair) (1940, no. 1).1 Kaufmann and Barr had representative of contemporary mexican art the opposite sex.8 The deliberate ambivalence spent part of the summer of 1942 traveling and to the strong impression Kahlo’s and resultant gender confusion contribute together in mexico, looking for works of art Autorretrato con pelo cortado had made on to the work’s uncanny allure. to acquire for the museum’s collection.2 By both men. although it is unclear exactly all who knew Kahlo well surely would early February 1943 Barr was able to report when and where Barr first saw the painting, have recognized the charcoal-gray, oversized to Kaufmann—who was away, serving a Kaufmann had visited Kahlo at her home suit and crimson shirt as attributes of her tour of duty in the united States air Force in mexico in February 1940, at a moment husband, the famed mexican mural painter intelligence Office—that “now we have prac- very likely coincident with that of the work’s Diego rivera, whose divorce from Kahlo tically every mexican artist whom we would origins.5 “i have to give you a [sic] bad news,” became final in november 1939.9 identifying like to have well represented, with the excep- Kahlo wrote to her friend and erstwhile the garments as rivera’s complicates the tion of Frida Kahlo. i have my eye on the lover the photographer nickolas muray, on work’s psychological subtext: to put on the small self-portrait of Frida sitting in a chair February 6, 1940: “i cut my hair, and looks clothes of a former lover is a physically with close cropped hair, the floor strewn just like a ferry [sic]. Well, it will grow again, i intimate act, simultaneously tender and with the hair she has just cut off, with some hope!”6 Her misspelled choice of the word aggressive. it involves, on the one hand, the touching inscription up above, such as ‘will “fairy,” which Kahlo used to refer to an overtly potentially poignant touch of fabric against you love me in December even with my hair effeminate male homosexual in a way typical skin and, on the other, the assertive appro- cut off.’ Do you think this is a good picture? of 1940s-era homophobia, is telling: it con- priation of another’s (sartorial) identity as Would it be something you would like to have jures a subject with masculine and feminine one’s own. Autorretrato con pelo cortado was your money spent on? i like it very much.”3 qualities. it is this newly androgynous self conceived and painted at a moment when that Kahlo meticulously documented in Kahlo was particularly keen to establish her Autorretrato con pelo cortado. financial independence from rivera and to although Kahlo previously had painted make a living from her art.10 it is, therefore, one other portrait of herself with short hair, certainly plausible to view the work, as one 1. Autorretrato con pelo Autorretrato con pelo cortado is the only work early critic did and others subsequently cortado (Self-Portrait with she ever made in which she chose to portray have done, as a sign of Kahlo’s “determination Cropped Hair). 1940. herself in men’s clothing.7 Like the traditional to compete with men on the same artistic oil on canvas, 15 3/4 x 11" mexican dresses she usually wore and posed level”—to assume the role of master, as (40 x 27.9 cm). the Museum of Modern art, new York. in, her distinctive attire can be considered opposed to wife, mistress, or muse, at the gift of edgar Kaufmann, Jr. in symbolic terms as a form of self-defining same time as she mourned rivera’s absence.11 100 101 in January 1940, probably just prior to of the written sign.”15 But at the same time 1. Edgar Kaufmann, Jr., letter to ed. raquel Tibol (mexico city: likely familiarity with man ray’s Kahlo (London: Tate, 2005), (January 15, 1943): 14; archived cutting her hair, Kahlo reported to muray, they reject it; Kahlo also forced those lines alfred H. Barr, Jr., February 25, Plaza y Janés, 2004), p. 241. photographs of Duchamp as plate 35 and fig. 102. and when in Press clipping Volumes, 1943. alfred H. Barr, Jr. Papers, “i have to finish a big painting . [for The into mimetic service, into the jobs of descrip- 7. For the most extensive dis- rrose Sélavy, see ibid., p. 184. Kahlo painted rivera’s portrait Peggy Guggenheim museum, i.97, The museum of modern art cussion of Autorretrato con For a useful discussion of the set within her own face in Venice. Kahlo’s Autorretrato con International Exhibition of Surrealism that tion and self-representation. archives, new York. pelo cortado to date, including distinction between posing and Autorretrato como tehuana pelo cortado was included in a opened in mexico city on January 17, 1940] it is perhaps in this hairy, calligraphic, 2. Barr, draft report on his mention of the earlier attempting to “pass,” see (Self-Portrait as a Tehuana) show titled Exhibition by 31 and start small things to send to Julien floor-bound realm—at a distance from the summer 1942 trip to mexico Autorretrato con cabello corto Jennifer Blessing, “rrose is a (1943), she rendered him in the Women at Peggy Guggenheim’s [Levy].”12 it is highly likely that one of the face that has, by now, become so famous and cuba, undated. alfred H. y rizado (Self-Portrait with rrose is a rrose: Gender same crimson shirt and char- recently opened gallery art of Barr, Jr. Papers, 10.a.47, Curly Hair) (1935) and a useful Performance in Photography,” coal-gray wide-lapelled suit, this century, new York, January “small things” she subsequently started was that its celebrity makes it difficult to see her The museum of modern art overview of critical responses in Rrose is a Rrose is a Rrose: further supporting an associa- 5–31, 1943. i am indebted to Autorretrato con pelo cortado. Kahlo always art—that Kahlo the master artist most power- archives, new York. to the work, see Gannit ankori, Gender Performance in tion between these garments robert Storr’s suggestion that insisted on her work’s documentary character fully emerges, as a figure not only capable 3. Barr, letter to Kaufmann, Imaging Her Selves: Frida Photography (new York: and rivera. ibid., plate 42. in Kahlo’s Autorretrato con pelo and its intimate relation to real, lived events of wearing her then-more-famous husband’s February 4, 1943. alfred H. Barr, Kahlo’s Poetics of Identity and Solomon r. Guggenheim 10. See Kahlo’s letters to muray, cortado she kills the muse to Jr. Papers, i.97. The museum of Fragmentation (Westport, museum, 1997), p. 23. December 18, 1939, January in her life.13 among these events, in addition suit with authority but of creating an intimate, become the master. Storr, modern art archives, new York. conn.: Greenwood Press, 2002), 9. ankori argues against identi- 1940, and February 6, 1940, in “Frida Kahlo autoportrait aux to those directly linked to her biographical corporeal, counter-language that placed her 2. Diego rivera (Mexican, 4. For a closer translation see pp. 175–87. i am indebted to fying the suit with Diego rivera Escrituras, pp. 238–41, on her cheveux coupés,” Art Press, no. circumstances, the brouhaha over mexico private, personal experiences at the center 1886–1957). Autorretrato MoMA Highlights: 350 Works her observations throughout, and suggests that Kahlo may determination to rely only on 113 (april 1987): 84. city’s Surrealism exhibition—which prompted of her public practice, redefining, in terms of (The Firestone Self-Portrait). from The Museum of Modern although because she inter- have loosely based the painting her own art for money and for 12. Kahlo, letter to muray, 1941. oil on canvas, 24 x 17" Kahlo’s sarcastic remark that “everybody in a very particular feminine subjectivity, what Art, New York (new York: The prets Autorretrato con pelo cor- on a photograph of herself, references to how hard she was January 1940. The big painting (61 x 43.2 cm). Collection museum of modern art, 1999), tado as evidence of what she seated in a similar chair, wear- working in anticipation of a Kahlo referred to is most likely mexico has become a surrealist because all can be considered subject matter for the Michael audain and Yoshiko p.

Load more