Screenshot from the Faces of Frida archive featuring Julien Levy’s photo portrait of Frida Kahlo (all images courtesy of Google Arts and Culture)
If all the drama surrounding the Frida Kahlo Barbie has you pining for a deep dive back into the artist’s real life and work, you’re in luck. Last night, Google Arts & Culture launched Faces of Frida, a collaboration between the tech giant and a worldwide network of experts and 33 partner museums in seven countries. Accessible via the Google Arts & Culture app and website, Faces of Frida is the largest collection of artworks and objects related to Kahlo ever compiled.
Faces of Frida featuring a 1926 sketch by Frida Kahlo depicting her nearly-fatal accident” width=”360″ height=”299″ srcset=”https://hyperallergic-newspack.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2018/05/frida-sketch-accident-360×299.jpg 360w, https://hyperallergic-newspack.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2018/05/frida-sketch-accident-720×597.jpg 720w, https://hyperallergic-newspack.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2018/05/frida-sketch-accident-1080×896.jpg 1080w, https://hyperallergic-newspack.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2018/05/frida-sketch-accident.jpg 1400w” sizes=”(max-width: 360px) 100vw, 360px”>Screenshot of Faces of Frida featuring a 1926 sketch by Frida Kahlo depicting her nearly-fatal accident
The 800 artifacts include images of Kahlo’s work — including 20 ultra-high resolution images created by Google Arts & Culture’s Art Camera, never digitized till now — but also personal photographs, journal entries, letters, and clothing. There are drawings from private collections, like Kahlo’s 1932 “View of New York”; there are early versions of her work, sketched and etched onto the backs of finished paintings, unseen to anyone without the ability touch them; and even a photo of her husband, Diego Rivera, with the imprint in bright pink lipstick of Kahlo’s lips.
Screenshot from the Faces of Frida archive featuring a photo of Diego Rivera in his studio at San Angel, kiss-marked by Frida Kahlo.
“For years, we have been working in partnership with a network of partner museums and experts from all over the world to … present a more complex portrait of Kahlo and her lasting influence available to everyone, anywhere,” Luisella Mazza, the head of operations for Google Arts & Culture, told Hyperallergic.
The five Google Street view tours on Faces of Frida also allow users to visit “the places that made an impact on her career,” as a Google Arts & Culture statement puts it, including the famous Blue House in Mexico City in which she was born and died.
The Google Street View camera photographing Frida Kahlo’s home studio
Screenshot from the Faces of Frida archive of Frida Kahlo’s photo portrait shot by Guillermo Kahlo
“There are so many ways to be interested in Frida Kahlo,” Peter Schjeldahl wrote over a decade ago in The New Yorker. “No one need appreciate art to justify being a Kahlo fan or even a Kahlo cultist.” It’s true — Kahlo’s legacy has its own kind of gravity. Her historical effluence gets metabolized in all the ephemeral bits her fans will ingest: her dying words, the notes sent to lovers, the colors of her home as evidence of her loveliness. What other artist has left a legacy that spans innumerable tote bags, posters, Halloween costumes, tourist attractions, blockbuster exhibitions, and more?
In keeping with Kahlo’s vast influence, Faces of Frida also offers an in-depth look at the artist’s ongoing impact on music, fashion, and dance. Users can read essays and tributes written specifically by women and LGBTQ artists, view a new artwork by Alexa Meade — guided by Cristina Kahlo — and watch a short film that follows the making of a portrait inspired by Frida’s work, with Mexican musician Ely Guerra as the model.
“Though self-portraits may be how most people first encounter Frida Kahlo, the woman they portray is revered for much more than her art,” Mazza added. “The complexity of her thinking on feminism and politics, the relationship with her body, her legacy and her country, remains fresh and continues to inspire people from all backgrounds.”
Screenshot featuring Juan Guzmán’s photo of Frida Kahlo posing with a sugar skull (ca 1950–51)
Visit Faces of Frida or download the app on either iOS or Android.
The Latest
Bobby Wilson Combats Indigenous Stereotypes Through Humor
The artist-performer’s career undulates, ever so gracefully, across multiple mediums and registers of generational pain, healing laughter, and Indigenous joy.
Rare 19th-Century Silhouette Album’s Secrets Unlocked
Traveling portrait artist William Bache’s album depicts famous figures like Thomas Jefferson as well as people whose identity was previously unknown.
Nevada Museum of Art Presents Adaline Kent: The Click of Authenticity
For the first time in nearly 60 years, the innovative yet under-recognized artist is the subject of a retrospective exhibition. On view in Reno, Nevada.
Artists Show What They Can Do With a Google Phone’s Camera
Works by 20 photographers are now on view in Manhattan for the seventh season and 100th project coming out of the Google Creator Labs.
Met Museum Kicked Me Out for Praying to My Ancestral Gods
My danced prayer to looted Cambodian antiquities was too much for the New York museum.
The Public Theater in NYC Presents Plays for the Plague Year
Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Suzan-Lori Parks’s theatrical concert chronicles the 2020 lockdown and the hope and perseverance that emerged from it.
A Museum Guard’s Ode to the Healing Power of Art
In All the Beauty in the World, Patrick Bringley revisits the many ways that art meets life, and life art, and how death is often the bridge between them.
UK Extends Export Ban on Coveted “Portrait of Omai”
London’s National Portrait Gallery was given a few months to acquire the work, which depicts the first Polynesian visitor to the UK.
Mondays at Pratt Institute: Weekly Openings of Work by Graduating Artists
Free and open to the public, Pratt Shows celebrate the school’s graduating students. MFA and BFA work on view this spring in Brooklyn, New York.
The Sculptor Making Art With Loved Ones’ Ashes
Inspired by the three-year anniversary of the COVID-19 pandemic, Julian Stair’s exhibition honors the lives of eight people with cinerary jars.
Art Institute of Chicago Under Scrutiny Over Sacred Nepali Necklace
The 17th-century object remains on display at the Chicago museum despite Nepal’s calls for repatriation.
LSU School of Art Grants Highest MFA Stipends in the Southern US
With funded assistantships, full tuition waivers, and generous stipends, Louisiana State University helps students lay the groundwork for a successful lifelong art practice.
Art Problems: How Do I Get a Public Art Commission?
Want to leave a mark on your city or town, but don’t know where to start? Paddy Johnson has some tips.
Rose B. Simpson Embeds Ancestral Histories in Clay
She has taken clay and used it to recall its ancestral roots in Pueblo culture and address the present history of postcolonial recovery and ongoing trauma.
Blood, hair, skin, fire, wet, fierce, crazy with love, bold, bones, slaying, flayed, exploding with soul, exploding with color, courage beyond belief, dance with the devil, mesmerising, Mexicana, guapissima, lacrimas, sexual, mujer, virgen, amante de Vida, de Diego, de arte! Life Life Life. PAIN. Not suffering – PAIN. Woman’s pain, woman’s passion. Frida the one and only to ever, ever paint woman’s pain.
Now-writers handle Frida with six-foot tongs, looking through the wrong end of the scope to make her distant and safe, filling the page with facts and boredom and dry, sterile Anglo words. “Blue House” ???
Never heard of it. Casa Azul is where we go to pay homage.