As Frida Kahlo’s ‘La Casa Azul’ makes its way to central Beirut, Natasha Dirany examines the legacy of the female artist.

Celebrate the life and art of Frida Kahlo, starting October 22nd until December fourth at Achrafieh’s Ground 68. The creative team will be transforming the space into a Beiruti replica of ‘La Casa Azul’ – or ‘The Blue House’ – in Coyoacán, Mexico City. This is the house where Kahlo lived and worked, painting herself a reputation as one of the most notorious characters in Mexico’s history, while rendering some of the most recognisable works of art to come out of the 20th century.

Have you ever tried to reel off a list of the most famous female artists? While the likes of Picasso, Andy Warhol and Salvador Dali have earned themselves celebrity titles that rival the world’s most coveted brands, their female equiv- alents seldom share the spotlight. From Georgia O’Keefe to Tracey Emin, women rarely transgress the status of serious artist to international household name – unless their personal life, or sexual promiscuities, are involved. Frida Kahlo, arguably the biggest of them all, is certainly no exception. Bisexual affairs with Leon Trotsky and Josephine Baker, a rocky marriage to Diego Rivera, her submersion into revolutionary politics, the tragic accident that left her painting in a full body cast... Kahlo’s story lends itself well to mytholo- gisation. Add to that Kahlo’s own obsession with self-portraiture and the infamous unibrow, and it’s easy to see where the ‘cult’ of Kahlo began. Posthumously, everything from inter- national retrospectives to Calvin Klein ads have further immortalised her image. Salma Hayek even starred in the 2002 biopic ‘Frida’.
And now, there’s the recre- ation of Kahlo’s own family home in Beirut. ‘The House of Frida’ will bring together paint- ings, photographs, digital art- works, texts and film screenings under one roof. If you’re reading this before May 9th, you still have a chance to add your own Kahlo- inspired piece to the collection too.

But it’s not just an exhibition – reproductions of Kahlo’s furniture, clothes and diary will be used to give you a peek through the key-
hole into the artist’s world.