Fulang-Chang and I by Frida Kahlo at the MOMA in New York City, USA. When curators Leah Dickerman, Luis Pérez-Oramas, and I bega
Fulang-Chang and I by Frida Kahlo at the MOMA in New York City, USA. When curators Leah Dickerman, Luis Pérez-Oramas, and I began to discuss our plans for creating a new gallery dedicated to Mexican Modernist art made in the 1930s and 1940s—which opened in May of this year—Frida Kahlo’s Fulang-Chang and I was one of the works we were determined to include. We were intent not only to show the painting, but also to display it alongside the mirror that Kahlo made to accompany it, for reasons I’ll elaborate on a bit later. For me, this self-portrait is one of the most intriguing works in MoMA’s Painting and Sculpture collection. Although Kahlo lacked formal artistic training, she read voraciously in three languages (Spanish, English, and German) and drew upon a sophisticated knowledge of art history to make her work. This particular self-portrait, for example, recalls Renaissance paintings of the Madonna and child. Instead of presenting the customary cherubic infant, however, she offers an unlikely protagonist: Fulang-Chang, one of several spider monkeys that she kept as pets. The pet monkeys that frequently appear in her paintings are often interpreted as surrogates for the children she and her husband, the artist Diego Rivera, were unable to conceive. While personal hardship may have played a role in prompting Kahlo’s unconventional decision to include her monkey in this self-portrait, I think her sense of humor is equally evident in the choice. What other artist would draw our attention to the way her facial features resemble an animal’s? This painting is, among many other things, an irreverent ode to hair—the hairy body of the monkey and the wooly, white-haired cacti surrounding Kahlo accentuate her famous monobrow and faint mustache. If you look closely at her neck, loose strands of hair add to the chorus. In early Christian and Mayan art, monkeys are also associated with promiscuity and sin, adding yet another layer of possible meaning to the pa
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Photo credit: © Sergi Reboredo / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
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