Even Better Than the Movie

She was punk before punk, feminist before the Third Wave, and a proud mestiza before the word Chicana had even been invented. She is genderfluid, Christlike, and forever double-impaled by a broken body and her love for a strange man. All these qualities contribute to the work at the exhibit "Frida Kahlo," which includes iconic paintings, rarely exhibited still lifes, and photos of the artist with that bad husband of hers, Diego Rivera. The exhibit allows you to spend a little (not enough) quality time with Frida's facial hair, which allows the reality of it to sink in. You know any hot chicks rocking the 'stache and unibrow? No. You don't and you never will, because Kahlo – think about it – was burlier and more honest than any other rebel we can think of from our time or hers. Fellow self-portraitists like Robert Mapplethorpe and Cindy Sherman, towering as they are, are pansies compared to this woman. At the exhibit, the twentysomething man in line behind us was floored: "She was so bad ass!" Duh, buddy, but good for you. Bonus: Anyone with milk ducts will want to grab their own boobs in front of the breastfeeding mindfuck of My Nurse and I, whether they notice the insects or not.
June 14-Sept. 28, 2008