How the Zeitgeist helped create Fridamania

Daniel Nelson

Advance sales for the new Frida Kahlo exhibition topped 41,000, a Tate Modern record. At £25 a pop, it will be a commercial bonanza.

The tea towels, crochet keyrings, sunglasses and the mountain of merch will mint more money and this huge, blockbuster show has also generated a hundred other Fridaesque opportunities, including a bespoke gallery menu (“creating a richer and more immersive visit”) and six large-scale public murals around town. A programme of related events will, of course, include a Day of the Dead Festival.

Yet only 36 of some 150 works are by “one of the most influential figures in the history of art”. The rest are by artists she has influenced and inspired.

The Tate justifies this latest outburst of Fridamania by setting up the show not as yet another display of her work, but as Frida: The Making Of An Icon. She made some weird and wonderful paintings, but how did an artist who had only a couple of solo shows in her lifetime and who was little known around the world become such a global figure after her death in 1954, her face instantly recognisable by millions?

Among the factors cited in this sprawling, colour-happy show are

* the effort Kahlo put into constructing and projecting her personal, political and physical selves. She offers something for almost everyone: a woman, a wife, a divorcee, an artist, a feminist, a sexual shapeshifter, a Mexican, a person of colour, a person with disabilities (she was smashed up in a traffic accident when only 18), an iconoclast, an artistic innovator

* timing: her behaviour, beliefs and practices were ahead of their time. They were lying in wait to be seized on and magnified when the world, and particularly the crucially influential US, caught up - the changing role of women, the anti-racism and anti-colonial movements, the sexual and queerness revolutions, the Latino, civil, disability and perhaps above all, identity rights movements

* Mexican Americans turned her into an advocate for their causes, which brought her to the attention of other groups, who also spotted her as a figure of strength and inspiration

* photography: it became an increasingly powerful medium in her lifetime and the photos of her seem almost as important as her own work

* commercialisation: the ubiquity of merch, the super-efficient licensing of brands and partnerships supercharged the spread of images by and of her.

She slotted into the Zeitgeist, authentically.

And that’s on top of her artistic skills, bravery, honesty, directness, drive. As the exhibition shows, these qualities, expressed at a particular moment in history, propelled her into the public eye. But even more significantly, the public eye - and particularly women’s eyes - look at her image and images of her and are fascinated. They see someone to whom they can relate. Even if  their experiences are not identical, even if they cannot be her, they see someone who reflects some of their frustrations and wants.

In the Tate magazine, British artist Tracy Eminwrites, “the fact that she had no proper training yet obviously had the talent is extraordinary. When you look at the paintings you see that they are good. She painted what she saw – and the fact that she actually saw these things in her imagination is incredible. 

“At the time there were many people around her, including the Surrealists, who were trying to be weird, when she genuinely was. She was also extremely politically motivated. She laid herself on the line about the things she believed in.”

That last sentence captures what makes her such an iconic figure for so many. 

• Frida: The Making Of An Icon, £25, is at Tate Modern, Bankside SE1 9T until 3 January. Info: Frida Kahlo