[NYTr] A Ribbon Wrapping a Bomb: Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera in Cuba

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

CubaNow - Sep 17, 2007
http://www.cubanow.net/global/loader.php?&secc=1&item=3337&c=2

A Ribbon Wrapping a Bomb: Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera in Cuba

By Yanelis Abreu
Translation by Gilda Gil

Cubanow.- A Ribbon Wrapping a Bomb, phrase written by Frida Khalo in
her diary, is the title of the Colloquium Casa de las Americas is
hosting in Havana in September. Dedicated to the topics of gender and
self-imaging in Frida’s work, and of history and revolution in Diego
Rivera’s , the event is part of the international homage that is being
paid to this famed married couple of artists. On the table for debate
among specialists in the field are themes inherent to their works such
as ethnic groups, nation and classes and the influence of these two
creators in Latin American and Caribbean avant-guard artists.

The theoretical event counts on the participation of notable scholars
from Mexico, namely researchers and professors Teresa del Conde and Ida
Rodríguez Prampolini and artists Rina García Lazo, Arturo García Bustos
and Arturo Estrada, pupils of Frida and Rivera. Dr. Adelaida de Juan,
art critics and Merit Professor at the Havana University is
representing Cuba with a special address.

A Ribbon Wrapping a Bomb brings together in itself several artistic
expressions. Performing art is presenting the semi-montaje theater play
Silk Ribbons by Cuban playwright and art critics Norge Espinosa. This
piece deals, in a peculiar way, with the life of two transcendental
women of Mexican and Hispanic-American culture: Frida Kahlo and Sister
Juana Inés de la Cruz . Performances are on La Chinche Theater Group,
directed by Lisette Silverio.

Also slated are film showings that include the best cinematographic
production on Kahlo: “Frida: Live Nature (1983), directed by Mexican
Paul Leduc.

The inauguration of a collective exhibit entitled Long Live Life:
Frida, confers the Colloquium a luxury closing. The collection made up
of 63 works by 56 artists, all members of the Salón de la Plástica
Mexicana, is arriving in Mexico F.D. after being on exhibit this year
at the Antiguo Colegio de Cristo and the Centro Cultural Benemérito de
las Américas in that capital.

Pieces dating since 1943 to date by renowned creators such as Fanny
Rabel, Arturo Estrada and Arturo García Bustos, Frida’s former pupils,
present their vision of the life, work and myth of this grand colorist
and woman of her times.

Year 2007, marking the 100th birth and 50th death anniversaries of
Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, respectively, is a perfect opportunity to
pay homage to these two authors, true representatives of Latin American
identity. This couple unfolded a life-long struggle to bring art close
to the people: Frida, as author of autobiographic paintings, stormy and
upholding America’s culture; Diego, as member of Mexican mural
paintings group and one of the best painters on earth.

[The author is art critics at Cubanow.]