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BROOKLYN WEEKLY, FEB. 17, 2019
VIVA LA FRIDA!
New exhibit explores the Mexican artist’s life
BY KEVIN DUGGAN
It’s a giant show with
an intimate feel.
An expansive new exhibit
on iconic Mexican
painter Frida Kahlo offers
an amazingly personal
look into the artist’s
life. “Frida Kahlo: Appearances
Can Be Deceiving,”
which opened this month
at the Brooklyn Museum,
brings a host of her private
items to the United States
for the fi rst time, including
her clothes, jewelry,
cosmetics, medicines, and
orthopedic corsets, which
she wore after a bus accident
broke her spine at age
18.
The exhibit demonstrates
how Kahlo meticulously
fashioned her public
persona, both in her
appearance and in her artwork,
according to one of
the show’s curators.
“The show expands our
understanding of Kahlo
by revealing the unique
power behind the ways she
presented herself in the
world and depicted herself
in art,” said Catherine
Morris.
Among the objects on
display are two of the plaster
corsets Kahlo wore
while in the hospital after
her accident. She used
a mirror to draw the communist
symbol of the hammer
and sickle on the front
of the casts, integrating
them into her wardrobe
and making the bulky
items seem like deliberately
chosen pieces.
The exhibit also shows
how she used her sartorial
choices to champion
the indigenous cultural renaissance
known as Mexicanidad,
by publicly wearing
Tehuana dresses she
bought from indigenous
vendors in Mexico City.
The curators sourced
Kahlo’s belongings from
her lifelong Mexico City
home Casa Azul, or Blue
House, which is now a museum
dedicated to the artist.
At the Brooklyn Museum,
the artifacts are
arranged to focus on different
themes in Kahlo’s
life, including her communist
politics, her turbulent
marriage to fellow painter
Diego Rivera, and her visits
to the United States.
Kahlo visited New York
several times, fi rst in 1931
when her husband was
commissioned to paint a
mural at Rockefeller Center,
and again in 1937 when
she returned to exhibit her
own work. She immediately
fell in love with the
city, but the disparity of
wealth she saw reaffi rmed
her political convictions,
according to the exhibit.
The show also features
a surprising connection
between Kahlo and the
Bard of Brooklyn. A collection
of Walt Whitman’s
poems, translated into
Spanish, was found on her
bedside table when she
died in 1954.
The curators of the
show hope that the display
of Kahlo’s work and her
life can help to offset negative
portrayals of Mexico
that are common in American
politics, and that it
can offer visitors a more
accurate picture of Mexico’s
vibrant cultural heritage,
according to the museum’s
director.
“As we see how our
neighbors and friends
in Mexico are being portrayed
here in the United
ICON: “Frida Kahlo: Appearances Can Be Deceiving” hosts an array
of the artist’s personal belongings. She visited New York City
several times — this photo by Nickolas Murayher shows her on a
Manhattan rooftop in 1946. Brooklyn Museum
States, the time is now to
spotlight more dignifi ed
and truthful and celebratory
portraits of Mexico’s
great history, great traditions,
and great culture,”
said Anne Pasternak.
“Frida Kahlo: Appearances
Can Be Deceiving” at
Brooklyn Museum 200 Eastern
Pkwy., at Washington
Avenue in Prospect Heights,
www.brooklynmuseum.org,
(718) 638-5000. Running
through May 12. Timed tickets
$20–$25, untimed $35.
DEATH
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Lee and her mother, who is
a traditional Japanese Butoh
dancer, explored their language
barrier in the 2016 dance piece
“Communing with You.” In the
new 90-minute play, they join a
cast of seven to tell the story of
two people trying to navigate a
nightmarish world.
The show takes place in Suicide
Forest, an actual forest at the
foot of Mt. Fuji that is famous as a
spot where people go to kill themselves.
Lee plays a high-school girl trying
to escape a strictly conformist
society, who travels into the woods
and meets a supernatural woman,
played by her mother, who invites
people to their deaths.
Lee said that she was inspired
to explore her own background
and identity on stage by the 1964
Adrienne Kennedy play “Funnyhouse
of a Negro.”
“I was really struck by Kennedy’s
ability to write a play from her
kind of dark psychic landscape,
the very inner vulnerable space, so
I set out to write a place with that
same intention,” she said. “I would
say the nightmare is really pointing
to this dark psychic space, the
play itself is digging into my Japanese
and Japanese-American identity.”
“Suicide Forest” at the Bushwick
Starr (207 Starr St. between
Irving and Wyckoff avenues in
Bushwick, www.thebushwickstarr.
org). Feb. 27–March 16, Wed–
Sat at 8 pm. $25.
Continued from page 1
and cheap and we serve it all
day,” said Noel Brown.
Brown’s Fulton Street restaurant
serves up popular Trinidadian
fare, and the award
specifi cally noted its doubles —
curried chickpea sandwiches
served between fried fl atbread
— along with its bake, roti, and
other dishes from the twin-island
republic.
The food at the Roti Shop, according
to the Foundation, is
a “delicious reminder of Bed-
Stuy’s rich Caribbean history.”
The Foundation’s other
awards rely on outside nominations,
but winners in the
American Classics category are
suggested by its 19-member Restaurant
and Chef Awards Committee.
The group of food critics
each year consider hundreds of
restaurants that meet the three
criteria for the award: being in
operation for at least a decade,
being locally owned, and serving
moderately-priced food options.
The family-run business began
serving its doughy snacks
and fl atbread in Bedford-
Stuyvesant in 2002. The neighborhood
has seen major demographic
changes since then, but
Brown said that the newcomers
have become part of their loyal
clientele.
“The area’s been changing
a lot, but a lot of the new people
are curious to taste what we
have — they are always adventurous,”
he said.
After the award announcement,
Brown said that he has
seen a slight increase in patrons,
but vowed to retain the cultural
authenticity that earned the
award.
“I’ve seen a few new customers
and it’s been great, but
we’re taking it one at a time,”
said Brown. “We’re not going to
change and everything will still
be the same. We’re going to keep
maintaining our home-like vibe
and atmosphere.”
A&A Bake and Double and
Roti Shop 1337 Fulton St. between
Verona Place and Nostrand
Avenue in Bedford-Stuyvesant,
(347) 425–0016, www.
aandabakedoublesandrotishop.
com. Open Mon, 6:30 am–4:30
pm; Tue–Sat, 6:30 am–7 pm.
EATERY
Continued from page 1
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/www.aandabakedoublesandrotishop
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