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Frida Kahlo's house featured in Paris photography exhibition
🇲🇽 Mexico /Culture & Society

Frida Kahlo's house featured in Paris photography exhibition

From El Universal · () Spanish

Translated from Spanish, summarized and contextualized by DistantNews.

At a glance

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  • A Paris gallery is exhibiting 120 photographs from the last century, including rare images of Frida Kahlo's bathroom.
  • Photographer Graciela Iturbide captured the first images of Kahlo's bathroom in 2005, 15 years after the artist's death, as per her husband Diego Rivera's request.
  • The exhibition, 'L'espace entre nous,' explores the relationship between photographer, subject, and viewer through diverse photographic works.

Paris's Le BAL gallery is showcasing 'L'espace entre nous,' an exhibition featuring 120 "uncommon" photographs from the past century, coinciding with the bicentennial of photography. The collection draws from the Wilson Center for Photography's archive of 12,000 images.

Imagine the impact: it was like penetrating the tomb of a pharaoh. A mortuary 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 unveiled.

— Exhibition textDescribing the experience of photographing Frida Kahlo's bathroom.

Among the highlights are two 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 private space after Kahlo's death in 1954. Her husband, Diego Rivera, had stipulated that the bathroom remain closed for 15 years following his own passing. Iturbide's work, part of her series 'El Baño de Frida,' includes intimate shots of Kahlo's prosthetic leg in the bathtub and Iturbide's own feet as if she were about to use it.

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

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

The exhibition spans a century of photography, with the oldest image dating back to 1919 by André Kertész. The collection also features works by Latin American artists such as Sergio Larraín, Manuel Álvarez Bravo, and Lola Álvarez Bravo, alongside influential figures like Dorothea Lange and Walker Evans. Julie Héraut, the gallery's deputy director, explained that the exhibition's title, 'The space between us,' refers to the dynamic relationship between the photographer, the subject, and the audience observing the images. She invites visitors to engage with the photographs and decipher these connections.

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 HérautFurther elaborating on the interactive nature of the exhibition.
DistantNews Editorial

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

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