Tag: Frida Kahlo

Exceptional performance helps us know Frida Kahlo

Vanessa Severo in Frida...A Self Portrait (8).jpg

Vanessa Severo is Frida Kahlo at Writers Theatre (Photos by Zach Rosing taken at Indiana Rep)

4 Stars

You don’t often see costume changes right on stage against a backdrop of apparel hanging on clothes lines. But then, you don’t often see a highly charged, exceptional, one-person performance such as the one that opened in Writers Theatre on Jan. 31, 2025.

It is Frida-A Self Portrait directed by Joanie Schultz and written and performed by Latino actress Venessa Severo.

You may start off thinking you know who Kahlo is. But by the end of the show you will also think you understand how this famed Mexican artist saw herself.

Upon entering the lobby look at the board near the entrance to the Alexandra C. and John D. Nichols Theatre, Writers’ main show space, to read the happenings  and accomplishments chart during Kahlo’s short life.

Born July 6, 1907 to Guillermo, a German father, and Matilde, a Mexican-Purepecha-Spanish mother, she died July 13, 1954.

During that time she married artist Diego Rivera in 1929, painted, tried to carry their offspring (see tiny clothes on the line), painted, divorced, remarried Diego and painted.

Frida

The show’s premise is that Kahlo is being interviewed by a writer from an architecture magazine. (The house later became a museum)

You hear her explain her life but Severo also speaks to the audience. She shows her left hand with its missing fingers (a congenital disorder), as a way to express how she relates to Kahlo. (Kahlo  had polio that affected her legs and also survived a bus accident that left her severely injured.)

However, by the show’s end you really do feel you have met Kahlo and better understand her life and how she saw herself.

BTW, in 1990 Kahlo’s painting Diego and I became the first work by a Latin American artist to sell for more than $1 million ( US dollars). In 2001, Kahlo becomes the first Hispanic woman on a U.S. postage stamp.

DETAILS: Frida-A Self Portrait, is at Writers Theatre, 325 Tudor Ct. Glencoe, IL now through Feb. 23, 2025. Running time: about 75 plus minutes. For tickets and more information Visit Writers Theatre or call 847-242-6000.

Jodie Jacobs

For more shows visit Theatre in Chicago

 

 

 

Around town Part Two:  Art exhibits that are anything but boring

 

The Safety Patrol is among Bisa Butler: Portraits at the Art Institute of Chicago. (artists photo)
The Safety Patrol is among Bisa Butler: Portraits at the Art Institute of Chicago. (artists photo)

Chicago’s art scene is returning to life

Unusual portrait interpretations are at the Art Institute of Chicago.  Intriguing  works and insights of famed artist Frida Kahlo are at a College of DuPage gallery. Cartoon art and their artists are bringing memories and chuckles to the Chicago Cultural Center’s Yates Gallery and Museum of Contemporary Art’s Fourth Floor. Plus, the street art of Banksy will soon be up in a State Street space.

Because of the Obama’s strong ties to Chicago, Kehinde Wiley’s unique portrait of President Barack Obama and Amy Sherald’s brilliant portrayal of Michelle have started their tour at the Art Institute of Chicago. They can be viewed through Sept. 6, 2021.

While there visit Bisa Butler: Portraits. Butler’s works are done as quilts that portray  family, and black life. Up through Sept. 6,  “Bisa Butler: Portraits” is the artist’s first solo museum exhibition.

 

Frida Kahlo. Self portrait with small monkey. (Image courtesy of Cleve Carney Museum of Art)

Sept. 6 seems to be a popular end date so before it pops up on the calendar try to get over to the Cleve Carney Museum of Art at the College of DuPage  to see Frida Kahlo: Timeless.  The exhibit is as much about the life of a significant 20th century artist as a show of her work. The art museum is at 425 Fawell Blvd., Glen Ellyn.

Two Chicago destinations, The Museum of Contemporary Art and the Chicago Cultural Center have teamed to present cartooning art, history and the artists  behind them across the decades.

Chicago: Where Comics Came to Life. (James Prinz photography)
Chicago: Where Comics Came to Life. (James Prinz photography)

The Cultural Center exhibit, City of Chicago :: CHICAGO: Where Comics Came to Life goes from 1880 to 1960 and is curated by artist and author Chris Ware with Chicago Cultural Historian Emeritus, Tim Samuelson. The MCA – Home (mcachicago.org) takes it from the 1960’s to now and was guest-curated by Dan Nadel; organized for the MCA by former James W. Alsdorf Chief Curator  Michael Darling and Curatorial Assistant Jack Schneider.

Both exhibits close Oct. 3.

 The Art of Banksy: Without Limits opens Aug 14 at 360 N. State St. (fourth floor). In case you haven’t heard of this person, he is a street artist credited by Time Magazine  as among the world’s  100 most influential people in 2010. Although his identity is secret, Banksy is supposedly British and about 40 years old.

“The Art of Banksy” includes more than 130 of the artist’s original works, prints on various materials, photos, sculptures, murals, installations and more.  A video documentary accompanies the exhibit.

Jodie Jacobs