Читать книгу Devouring Frida - Margaret A. Lindauer - Страница 7

IN THE MID-1980s, when I first read a biographic account of Frida Kahlo, I was inspired but also vaguely unsettled by the tragic-heroic narrative. At the time, I was a master of fine arts student, and my sense of inspiration undoubtedly related to my continuing project of rediscovering forgotten women. My uneasiness was more difficult to explain. Although it was tiresome to hear Kahlo’s life incessantly reduced to psychosexual tragedy, I did not yet have a sufficient feminist and cultural theory vocabulary to enable me to analyze the construction of the artist. For years I noted the increasing circulation of Kahlo’s story and self-portraits, but without the theoretical framework through which to consider the phenomenon, it remained intriguing, albeit disconcerting.

Upon completing my MFA, I went to work as the exhibits curator at Arizona State University Museum of Anthropology, where I was immersed in issues of representation and authority related to the production of museum exhibitions. Because the graduate classroom was the most satisfying environment in which to consider the endless implications of putting objects, cultures, and histories on display, I decided to complete a master of art in art history. During my program of study, the Metropolitan Museum of Art traveled its blockbuster exhibition Mexico: Splendors of Thirty Centuries, for which one of Kahlo’s self-portraits was reproduced as an advertisement on billboards and in museum brochures and magazines. Mexico epitomized the superficiality with which such exhibitions tend to represent complex histories and transnational relationships, and I found it was a prime subject for poststructural analysis. As I considered its representations of Mexico in terms of the presentation of Kahlo’s paintings, I began to think more critically about the uneasiness with which I simultaneously was enthralled and wearied by interpretations of the artist’s life and work.

With encouragement from J. Gray Sweeney, I continued writing about Kahlo’s work despite being advised that there already was a glut of essays and manuscripts about the artist’s life and work. I am grateful to Corrine Schleif for helping me to consider the ways in which the popular celebrity of Frida Kahlo complies with the art history of Frida Kahlo. And, thanks to Julie Codell’s brilliant command of feminist, semiotic, and critical literary theory, I finally was able to analyze the complex social, cultural, and political structures through which Kahlo’s life has been recalled and recounted. Thus I began working on a master’s thesis incorporating alternative interpretations of Kahlo’s paintings that resist reducing the artist to an icon of tragedy and triumph. Following that project I began developing this deeper analysis of the historical context in which Kahlo worked.

Without the stimulating conversations with Nancy Mahaney and Julie Katz, I would not have sustained the subsequent years of reading, writing, and revising. As the manuscript developed into its current form, Arturo Aldama graciously agreed to read a portion of it and offered valuable suggestions for ways to enrich my interpretations. With support from Suzanna Tamminen and in response to comments by anonymous reviewers, my initially vague yet unsettling feeling toward the narrative of Kahlo’s life has been articulated as an analysis of representation. I could not have obtained permission to reproduce Kahlo’s work without generous assistance from Dulce Aldama, to whom I cannot sufficiently express my gratitude. I am indebted to Mary Crittendon for her editorial work. And, finally, I thank Owen Lindauer for encouraging me throughout this and other projects.

M.A.L.