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Frida Kahlo's home featured in Paris photography exhibition
🇵🇾 Paraguay /Culture & Society

Frida Kahlo's home featured in Paris photography exhibition

From ABC Color · () Spanish

Translated from Spanish, summarized and contextualized by DistantNews.

At a glance

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  • An exhibition in Paris features rare photographs, including intimate shots of Frida Kahlo's bathroom.
  • The photos, taken by Graciela Iturbide, offer a glimpse into the private space of the iconic Mexican artist.
  • The exhibition celebrates the bicentennial of photography and showcases a diverse collection of images from the past century.

Paris is hosting an exhibition titled 'L'espace entre nous' (The Space Between Us) at the Le BAL gallery, marking the bicentennial of photography. The exhibition features a selection of 120 "uncommon" photographs from the past century, drawn from the Wilson Center for Photography's collection of 12,000 images.

Imagine the impact: it was like penetrating the tomb of a pharaoh. A burial chamber and a treasure room. Imagine the sudden sensation of being able to communicate with the deceased and find yourself with the living, the suffering one, present through an intimacy never before revealed.

— Exhibition textDescribing the feeling of photographing Frida Kahlo's private bathroom for the first time.

A highlight of the show includes two rare photographs of Frida Kahlo's bathroom, taken in 2005 by Mexican artist Graciela Iturbide. These images are significant as they were the first to capture the space after Kahlo's death, as her husband Diego Rivera had requested it remain sealed for 15 years after his own passing. Iturbide was the first to photograph the intimate setting.

Iturbide described the experience as "penetrating the tomb of a pharaoh," a "burial chamber and treasure room," offering a connection to the deceased artist through her "undisclosed intimacy." Her series, 'El Baño de Frida,' includes complementary scenes of Kahlo's prosthetic leg in the bathtub and Iturbide's own feet as if about to bathe.

The 'space between us' that gives the exhibition its name refers to the relationship between the photographer, the person photographed, and a third person who always participates: those who see the images.

— Julie HérautExplaining the concept behind the exhibition's title and theme.

The exhibition also showcases a 1919 photograph by André Kertész and features works by 45 artists, including Latin Americans Sergio Larraín, Manuel Álvarez Bravo, and Lola Álvarez Bravo, as well as pioneers of documentary photography Dorothea Lange and Walker Evans. Texts by French writer Bertrand Schefer accompany the images, exploring the relationship between photographer, subject, and viewer.

Each of the images presented in the exhibition brings this relationship to the fore in a more or less visible way. It's like a game we propose to the public to come and discover the images and see, understand these images.

— Julie HérautDescribing the interactive element of the exhibition for visitors.
DistantNews Editorial

Originally published by ABC Color in Spanish. Translated, summarized, and contextualized by our editorial team with added local perspective. Read our editorial standards.

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