Diego Rivera e Frida Kahlo em Detroit

Imagem: Frida Kahlo, “Self-Portrait on the Borderline between Mexico and the United States” (1932), oil on metal (private collection)

A exposição Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo in Detroit, no Detroit Institute of Arts, mostra, até domingo, obras dos dois artistas mexicanos relacionados com a sua passagem pela cidade, nos anos 30, num tempo muito anterior à bancarrota da cidade, que mudou completamente a paisagem e a vida dos seus habitantes. O site Hyperallergic escreve sobre esta exposição:

Detroit has become a cautionary tale for what can happen when people cling to old methods in times that require innovation and radical change. The most interesting and important part of this exhibition is not how the artists loved each other or what they made in Detroit, or even why or how they made it, but the way it underlines the struggles and ties between art, labor, and matrimony that persist 80 years after the couple left town. The air of conventionality and traditionalism in the way this couple’s works and lives are displayed doesn’t feel like a celebration of the DIA or Detroit’s artistic future, but like a representation of the city’s continued longing for the perceived comforts of the past. The art is constantly in conflict with the institutions it ostensibly sought to romanticize: Rivera and Kahlo’s marriage; the automotive industry; and, more subtly, the museum itself.

O artigo completo em Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera Offer Dueling Accounts of Detroit’s Industrial Glory