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How to find Frida in Mexico City
How to find Frida in Mexico City
Pilgrimage takes travellers into heart of tortured artist's world
A dozen people have gathered in the tiny room to view the wooden four-poster that is the most famous bed in all of Mexico. More are waiting their turn in the adjacent hallway.
The bed has a canopy made of wood, with a large mirror attached to the underside, allowing anyone lying on the bed to stare at their reflection. It was the bed of Frida Kahlo.
There is also a head of sorts on the bed looking into the mirror. It's Kahlo's death mask, placed in the middle of the bed, rather than on the pillow. A green shawl is carefully arranged around the mask, as if to give this disembodied head a torso and shoulders. Poor Frida: She has been condemned to stare at herself, and nothing else, for eternity.
The bed is one of the star attractions at the first stop of a do-it-yourself, daylong Frida Kahlo tour in Mexico City. It stands inside La Casa Azul, otherwise known as the Museo Frida Kahlo.
This is the home where Kahlo was born in 1907 and died in 1954, a week after her 47th birthday. The exterior of the house is painted a shocking cobalt blue in the sleepy, upscale district of Mexico City called Coyacan.
It was actually Kahlo's mother who arranged for the mirror to be placed on the bed. Kahlo was often bedridden and the mirror allowed her to paint self-portraits, the artworks for which she is best known.
Two things combined to destroy Kahlo's health. First there was polio, which shrivelled her right leg. Then, at 18, she was involved in a horrific collision between a bus and a trolley car. The accident broke several bones, including her spinal column. An iron handrail was driven into her abdomen and uterus, causing her endless problems and numerous operations later in life.
But La Casa Azul is but one of three major sites for Kahlo pilgrimages in sprawling Mexico City. The other two are Museo Casa Estudio Diego Rivera y Frida Kahlo in San Angel and Museo Dolores Olmedo in Xochimilco. The three sites are far apart and none is close to a subway stop. Trying to take different taxis from one site to another could be complicated, if not downright dangerous, since some of the taxis prowling the streets are looking for tourists to fleece.
The solution is to hire a car and driver for the day. Most hotel front desks can line you up with a safe driver who will offer a reasonable hourly or daily rate and most likely speak some English.
For my recent Frida Kahlo tour, I booked a driver named Rogelio, who was recommended at the centrally located Hotel Fleming, which I have been patronizing for a decade. We negotiated a rate of 900 pesos (about $70), which would allow me to visit my three chosen sites, plus some other museums, if they could all be accommodated in seven hours.
At precisely 11 a.m., as prearranged, Rogelio arrived in front of the Fleming. In 20 minutes we were at the Casa Azul. I entered and Rogelio went in search of a late breakfast that he described to me later in lip-smacking detail: Orange juice, fresh papaya, two eggs and chilaquiles - fried corn tortillas topped with salsa and cheese.
The entrance fee to the Casa Azul is 65 pesos (about $5) plus another 60 pesos (about $4.50) to take flashless photographs.
The first few rooms offer dozens of drawings and paintings by Kahlo. They're not her best nor her most famous works, but visitors get a good idea of the kind of work Kahlo did as a teenager and later as she moved toward surrealism. Another room is filled with Kahlo family photographs and yet another with paintings by Diego Rivera, Frida's on-again, off-again husband. |
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發表於 2012-1-5 06:49
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