Why is there such a cult around Frida Kahlo (still)?

Frida Kahlo represents many things that women relate to but can feel marginalised by - her ethnicity, her political beliefs, and her sexuality for example. For most of her life she was in physical pain and has become almost like a modern day martyr of suffering - particularly gynaecological complaints. read more

the cult of kahlo By John Ward Anderson August 25, 1996 Frida Kahlo is everywhere, peering from plates, boxes, calendars, shop windows and restaurant walls with her haunting stare, internal organs exposed, blood dripping down her elongated neck, nails piercing her body, fetus floating from her umbilical cord like a kite, tears sprinkling her face. read more

Frida was born around the time of my grandmother. I cannot imagine my grandmother—or any woman of that strict post-colonial, Catholic generation—living as Frida did. Still, while pain and suffering is evident on her canvases, so is the notion of endurance, of living through it, and of hope. read more