The metamorphosis of an avant-garde artist into a global shelf brand has sparked a harsh internal conflict in the family of Frida Khalo, the most famous Mexican painter of the twentieth century, who died in poverty in 1954. Her great-granddaughter Cristina Kahlo broke her silence in an interview given to the British newspaper The Timesopenly lashing out against the Frida Kahlo Corporation (FKC), the Panamanian company that holds the commercial rights to the painter’s name and image.
According to Cristina’s analysis, the fuse that triggered this commercial drift dates back to the publication of the biography written by Hayden Herrera in 1983, a text that transformed the figure of the great-aunt into an icon of feminism and civil rights, while laying the foundations for a double-edged sword that completely distorted its artistic value.
The global souvenir business
Today the brand is licensed for the most disparate products: from clothing by the Chinese giant Shein to tequila-scented candles, through an official store on Amazon and even for the design of the Frida Kahlo Wynwood Residences luxury real estate complex in Miami, a 14-story skyscraper with a giant mural by the artist on the facade.
This commercial pervasiveness is the result of a deep split within the family tree: the FKC company was founded in 2004 by Isolda Pinedo Kahlo and her daughter Maria Cristina Romeo Pinedo in a joint venture with the Venezuelan entrepreneur Carlos Dorado, who owns 51%. The company was founded without the knowledge of Isolda’s brother, Antonio, father of Cristina herself who today denounces the ethical exclusion of the family.
The auction market records staggering figures
The protest raises a problem of a moral and ethical nature, since the painter, known for her strong left-wing political positions, is today associated with the dynamics of the most unbridled capitalism. The controversy coincides with a moment of exceptional financial exploits for the artist’s works.
The art market has recorded staggering figures: opera El sueño (The bed) it was recently auctioned by Sotheby’s in New York for the record sum of 55.6 million dollars, surpassing the world record for a work of art by women held since 2014 by Georgia O’Keeffe.
The museum short circuit at the Tate Modern
The commercial paradox reached its peak with the inauguration of the exhibition Frida: The Making of an Icon at the Tate Modern in London, a traveling exhibition from the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston which will analyze the phenomenon of “Fridamania”. The museum itinerary will display over 200 commercial memorabilia and, with a choice that Cristina judges to be the result of cynicism or sloppiness, she will guide visitors directly into the souvenir shop.
The leaders of the London gallery have already expressed the aim of surpassing the record of 737 thousand pounds of proceeds generated by merchandising during the 2005 retrospective, confirming the fact that the Kahlo brand continues to produce enormous profits regardless of the strictly pictorial value of her canvases.
You might also be interested in:
