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| Tate Modern 2 - 10.12.05 |
| submitter: | Vogon3 |
| location: | London |
This picture was taken at the Tate Modern the painting was by Frida Kahlo it is titled "colchón de la calle" (street mattress) painted in 1932 her work in the early 1930s, Kahlo adopted the characteristic format of Mexican ex-voto paintings. Ex-votos are a Catholic tradition, an offering made as a gesture of thanks for salvation from illness or accident. Painted on small-scale metal panels, a material that Kahlo adopts in the work shown here, they depict both the incident and the saint to whom they are dedicated, along with an inscription describing what had occurred.
However, rather than being tokens of gratitude, Kahlo's 'ex-votos' are unflinching images of traumatic events drawn from her own experience, in which life and death coalesce.
Kahlo began painting colchón de la calle 1932, following a miscarriage, and completed it after her mother's death, a few months later. Thus, paradoxically, colchón de la calle relates to two deaths. The child's distinctive eyebrows mark her out as Kahlo, while the identity of the mother is shrouded beneath a sheet, and could represent Kahlo's mother or the artist herself. I am sorry the picture is not that clear but photography is not permited in the Tate Modern so this was done very quickly and seceretly. |
| category: | streetmattress in media |
| comments: | 3 |
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| wim commented on 03.29.11 | | she was a hell of a woman, Kahlo and those I am thinking of |
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| ART commented on 10.13.05 | | I'm still unhappy that I haven't seen that building yet in real life |
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| DVD Dan commented on 10.13.05 | | Um, not so secret anymore. |
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