Frida Kahlo not so much

OK, so I don’t much like Frida Kahlo’s art – but she had an amazing life. She overcame so much to create a place in every Mexican’s heart as an icon of art, of resilience, of freedom, and much more. So I don’t think she would have thought much of the Frida Kahlo Museum I visited today.

The Museum is like a Wikipedia entry made into a building. It was just text on the walls describing her life and projections of some of her art work. It was also very expensive.

As a committed communist, Kahlo hated capitalism – so the Museum’s ridiculous entry fee would have pained her. Her paintings were all about the stark truth of her existence rather than escaping into illusions – and this museum was all about the illusion that it had anything material to do with her life. She believed in living authentically defying expectations and remaining true to herself – so the Museum pretending to being something it isn’t would have been abhorrent to her. And what makes this really ironic, in my view, is that I learnt these things about Frida from Wikipedia, not from the Museum.

Anyway outside of that waste of far too many dollars (the time wasn’t wasted as I do find her life interesting) it has been a hot and humid day in Playa del Carmen with a brisk wind kicking waves up in the sea. Only two days of school left now.