The Marginalian
The Marginalian

Frida Kahlo’s Politics

Even though the visionary Frida Kahlo (July 6, 1907–July 13, 1954) was born on July 6, 1907, she insisted on listing July 7, 1910, as her birth date — the start of the Mexican revolution — so that her life would parallel the birth of modern Mexico. But how, exactly, did the iconic artist arrive at her strong political convictions? The Diary of Frida Kahlo: An Intimate Self-Portrait (public library) — the same magnificent volume that gave us her passionate hand-written love letters to Diego Rivera and her poignant meditation on how we are all connected in our pain — offers a fascinating glimpse of the evolution of Kahlo’s political beliefs, which were heavily inspired by Marxist ideology but still reflective of the underlying ethos of her art, a profound celebration of our shared existence and the connectedness of the universe.

1st. I’m convinced of my disagreement with the counterrevolution — imperialism — fascism — religions — stupidity — capitalism — and the whole gamut of bourgeois tricks — I wish to cooperate with the Revolution in transforming the world into a class-less one so that we can attain a better rhythm for the oppressed classes

2nd. a timely moment to clarify who are the allies of the Revolution

Read Lenin — Stalin — Learn that I am nothing but a “small damned” part of a revolutionary movement.

Always revolutionary, never dead, never useless

From a handful of pages dated 1950–1951, which follow a lapse in her diary after seven grueling surgeries on her spinal column, and open with her gratitude for Doctor Farill, the surgeon whom Kahlo believes saved her, she offers this meditation on the urgency she feels to find a political utility for her art:

A despair which no words can describe. I’m still eager to live. I’ve started to paint again. A little picture to give to Dr Farill on which I’m working with all my love.

I feel uneasy about my painting. Above all I want to transform it into something useful for the Communist revolutionary movement, since up to now I have only painted the earnest portrayal of myself, but I’m very far from work that could serve the Party. I have to fight with all my strength to contribute the few positive things my health allows me to the revolution. The only true reason to live for.

Frida Kahlo, reconstructionist

A five-page entry dated November 4, 1952, marks a turning point for Kahlo’s work as she begins to see her painting not merely as the subjective, inward-turned reflection on her inner world but as a Marxist interpretation of reality, which she terms “Revolutionary Realism”:

Today I’m in better company than for 20 years) I am a self and a Communist.

I know
I have read methodically
that the main origins are wrapped in ancient roots. I have read the History of my country and of nearly all nations. I know their class struggles and their economic conflicts. I understand quite clearly the dialectical materialism of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin and Mao Tse. I love them as pillars of the new Communist world. Since Trotsky came to Mexico I have understood his error. I was never a Trotskyist. But in those days 1940 — my only alliance was with Diego (personally)

Political fervor. But one has to make allowances for the fact that I had been sick since I was six years old and for really very short periods of my life have I enjoyed truly good HEALTH and I was of no use to the Party. Now in 1953. After 22 surgical interventions I feel better and now and then I will be able to help my Communist Party. Although I’m not a worker, but a craftswoman — And an unconditional ally of the Communist revolutionary movement.

For the first time in my life my painting is trying to help in the line set down by the Party: REVOLUTIONARY REALISM

Before it was my earliest experience — I am only a cell in the complex revolutionary mechanism of the peoples for peace in the new nations, Soviets — Chinese — Czechoslovakians — Poles — united in blood to me. And to the Mexican Indian. Among those great multitudes of Asian people there will always be the faces of my own — Mexicans — with dark skin and beautiful form, with limitless grace. The black people would also be freed, so beautiful and so brave. (Mexicans and negroes are subjugated for now by capitalist countries above all North America — U.S. and England.) xxxxxxxxxxxx

Complement the altogether delicious Diary of Frida Kahlo with a lovely children’s book about Kahlo’s life and the beloved painter’s compassionate letter to bedridden Georgia O’Keeffe.

Illustration by Lisa Congdon for The Reconstructionists project


Published August 2, 2013

https://www.themarginalian.org/2013/08/02/frida-kahlos-politics/

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