“Women, Mexico, Art, Revolution: despite all that they both had in common, their lives and their work are strikingly different…. Each defined herself differently in the face of the necessities and accidents of history and biography, and in relationship to her own body. Yet both were women artists working consciously in the context of the Mexican Revolution and its aftermath, a time of violent upheaval and cultural awakening.”
Happy Birthday to Frida Kahlo, born on July 6, 1907!
This remarkable documentary from 1983 takes as its premise Frida Kahlo and Tina Modotti crossing paths in Diego Rivera’s 1929 mural in the Ministry of Education in Mexico City. The film explores artworks by these two women icons of the Mexican Renaissance, and also includes rare footage of Modotti in the 1920 film The Tiger’s Coat as well as home movie shots of Kahlo and Rivera at their Blue House in Mexico City.
The film was co-directed by film theorists and avant-garde filmmakers Laura Mulvey and Peter Wollen to coincide with the landmark exhibition they curated at the Whitechapel Art Gallery in 1982, also titled Frida Kahlo and Tina Modotti.