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Selects: Frida Kahlo: Painter, Icon, Genius · Stuff You Should Know

0:00
Speaker 1: Hi, folks, is Chuck here, and it's Saturday, and that
0:03
Speaker 1: means it's time for a select episode that we curate
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Speaker 1: by hand and brain and mouth. This one is about
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Speaker 1: one of my favorite painters of all time, one of
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Speaker 1: my family's favorite painters. My wife Emily loves fred to Carlo,
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Speaker 1: my daughter loves Free to Carlo. We have two giant
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Speaker 1: hand painted reproductions on canvas of two of our favorite
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Speaker 1: Free to Carlos hanging in our sunroom. And one day
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Speaker 1: we are finally, finally going to go down to Kasa
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Speaker 1: Azul and see where Freda lived and worked, because that
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Speaker 1: is on the bucket list and it's going to happen.
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Speaker 1: So check out this podcast episode about this iconic genius
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Speaker 1: artist of a woman, Free to Carlo Colon painter, icon genius.
0:54
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of I
0:57
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
1:06
Speaker 1: and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and there's Jerry Rowland.
1:10
Speaker 1: It's going to be an interesting one because I don't
1:12
Speaker 1: know how to say the ladies last name. Jerry's over
1:16
Speaker 1: there with her spider monkey on her shoulder, a dead
1:19
Speaker 1: hummingbird hanging from her necklace just like any other day.
1:23
Speaker 1: We're here in Laasa Azul, right, and she's gotten ahold
1:26
Speaker 1: of some eyebrow pencil and filled in between the two
1:29
Speaker 1: across the bridge of her nose. So I'm excited about this.
1:34
Speaker 1: A because you said Freda Calo before we started recording
1:39
Speaker 1: Frida Kayla, and B because you know my family's fascination
1:44
Speaker 1: with this woman in her work. No, we've talked about
1:48
Speaker 1: it before. That's okay. Though we've done a thousand episodes,
1:51
Speaker 1: we have talked about it before. Yeah, okay, well we'll
1:53
Speaker 1: get back into it. Yeah, we're way into Frieda. Emily
1:56
Speaker 1: is borderline obsessed. Is she a freedom mania? She is?
2:01
Speaker 1: And my daughter loves her. You know, there's like Freda
2:05
Speaker 1: I hate to use the word, but kind of cults
2:08
Speaker 1: devotional groups where um they basically dress up and and
2:13
Speaker 1: are like Frieda. It's like channel Frieda Kalo. Yeah, because
2:19
Speaker 1: as one of these articles that we source from points
2:21
Speaker 1: out near the end um, not only does she draw
2:24
Speaker 1: in people for her art, but she draws in feminists,
2:29
Speaker 1: and she draws in women who have suffered miscarriages and
2:34
Speaker 1: and disabled people who have suffered great pain and chronic
2:39
Speaker 1: pain in their life. So she through her life, she's
2:43
Speaker 1: able to um touch a lot of people because of
2:46
Speaker 1: her life. And I'm sure with any artist where if
2:49
Speaker 1: you know, the more you know about the artist, the
2:51
Speaker 1: more you can appreciate their art. Sure, with Freda Kalo,
2:56
Speaker 1: it's almost like you gotta quit saying that Frieda Kalo
2:59
Speaker 1: calo colo my whole life. I've been saying free to Kayla,
3:04
Speaker 1: and I like it rolls off the tongue. Yeah, but
3:06
Speaker 1: you know, let's give her the due respect. Um the
3:09
Speaker 1: when did we start doing that? I don't know? Okay,
3:13
Speaker 1: so um, you almost you just almost can't fully appreciate
3:18
Speaker 1: any piece of her work without knowing at least the
3:21
Speaker 1: basics of her story. I think, well, yeah, and certainly
3:24
Speaker 1: once you know the basics, you're like, oh right, that's
3:27
Speaker 1: where all this comes from. It really makes sense. But
3:31
Speaker 1: she is a great artist, for sure. I was going
3:33
Speaker 1: back and looking at some of her art, and you know,
3:35
Speaker 1: I'm familiar with her, I know a little bit about her, um,
3:38
Speaker 1: but I definitely saw some pieces that I didn't realize before.
3:41
Speaker 1: And just from researching this, I very much came to
3:43
Speaker 1: appreciate her even more. Like she's a great artist. Just
3:47
Speaker 1: the technique she used, the imagery she used, the symbolism,
3:50
Speaker 1: I really dig it all and it's like you can
3:54
Speaker 1: appreciate it because it gives you a visceral reaction, but you,
3:59
Speaker 1: the average person can also get what she's feeling or
4:02
Speaker 1: what she's saying without being like this means this, and
4:04
Speaker 1: that means that she just kind of get it visually.
4:08
Speaker 1: It's something that you can get and appreciate pretty easily. Yeah,
4:12
Speaker 1: I mean, we've we've seen her work in museums all
4:16
Speaker 1: over the world. Basically every new city we go to,
4:18
Speaker 1: we see, is there any free to color work there?
4:22
Speaker 1: Have you been to Lakasa Zul No? But that'll that's
4:25
Speaker 1: that's gonna happen. Oh, I'm sure I was gonna say
4:27
Speaker 1: bucket list, but it's just on the list. I'm like,
4:30
Speaker 1: I don't want to do it when I'm eighty, right
4:32
Speaker 1: with with um Jack Nicholson or something. No, Morgan Freeman, No, no, no,
4:36
Speaker 1: We're gonna go down there for sure. Alright, So let's
4:38
Speaker 1: let's start chronologically. Let's start at the beginning. That makes sense,
4:42
Speaker 1: so free to klo Um. She was born back in
4:45
Speaker 1: nineteen o seven, although she used to being a revolutionary.
4:49
Speaker 1: She used to say that she was born in nineteen ten,
4:51
Speaker 1: which was the year of the Mexican Revolution. But she
4:53
Speaker 1: was born in a town which was very free to yeah,
4:57
Speaker 1: free to call thing to do. Right. Um, she was
4:59
Speaker 1: born a town called Koyoa Khan which is outside of
5:03
Speaker 1: Mexico City. And she was born in that house, Lacasa
5:06
Speaker 1: Zul the Blue House. Yeah. Maybe maybe not there. There's
5:09
Speaker 1: a lot of um parts of her early life, like
5:12
Speaker 1: the year she was born where other people say, like,
5:15
Speaker 1: she's actually born nearby, but she says she was born there,
5:19
Speaker 1: so uh, like her birth records indicated different place, but
5:23
Speaker 1: it's we'll say she was born there. At the very
5:26
Speaker 1: least it was her family's house, right. Oh, and she
5:29
Speaker 1: it was. It was in her life for her whole life,
5:33
Speaker 1: so much so she actually died in that house. Yeah.
5:36
Speaker 1: And it's a museum now, yes it is. It's a
5:38
Speaker 1: national museum dedicated to Free to Carlo. Pretty cool. We
5:41
Speaker 1: can visit, right. So, Um, she was born in nineteen
5:45
Speaker 1: o seven, they've figured out, apparently you figured out and
5:48
Speaker 1: her father was a German or Hungarian because I saw both. Well,
5:52
Speaker 1: here's another little thing where oh boys, he was German.
5:57
Speaker 1: He was born in Germany, but Freed always said that
6:00
Speaker 1: he was of Hungarian Jewish descent. But that just doesn't
6:03
Speaker 1: appear to be true like ancestry genealogy records. So was
6:08
Speaker 1: he like German Protestant or something? Uh? German? Um? Uh?
6:14
Speaker 1: What Lutheran? Lutheran? I think that's Protestant. I think I
6:18
Speaker 1: think so. But I think I think it was Lutheran.
6:20
Speaker 1: I can't remember. But his name, depending on it was
6:25
Speaker 1: Carl Wilhelm. But when he traveled to Mexico in the
6:28
Speaker 1: late eighteen hundreds, he changed his name. He took the translation,
6:33
Speaker 1: the Spanish translation was original German name, which would have
6:36
Speaker 1: been Guillermo. Apparently it's a great name. Yeah. And then
6:42
Speaker 1: he became a Mexican citizen and married her mother, Matilda Calderon,
6:48
Speaker 1: who was um American Indian in Spanish. Yeah, and we
6:51
Speaker 1: should say Frieda. Frieda's full name is Magdalena Carmen Frieda Calo.
6:56
Speaker 1: He called her own great name. It is really there's
7:00
Speaker 1: a lot to it there. Basically gives you everything you want. Right. So, um,
7:05
Speaker 1: she was born and when someone else I came to
7:09
Speaker 1: admire from researching her as her father. He seemed to
7:11
Speaker 1: have been a pretty cool cat. He was a really
7:13
Speaker 1: good dad. Her mom was a little bits religiously hysterical
7:19
Speaker 1: I think, and very strict, but her dad was a
7:23
Speaker 1: bit of a foil in that he raised Frieda. He
7:28
Speaker 1: noticed something in Freda. It seems that she was different
7:32
Speaker 1: from her sister's, which she screamed, I mean just like
7:35
Speaker 1: she dressed in men's suits and things like that. She's
7:37
Speaker 1: definitely different than her sister's. But he saw in her
7:40
Speaker 1: something very much different than her sisters, not just in
7:42
Speaker 1: her outward behavior. And so he kind of plucked her
7:46
Speaker 1: out of the path that his sisters were on, which was,
7:50
Speaker 1: you know, go get married, or go being educated into convent,
7:55
Speaker 1: Go get married, go be a wife, and said, you
7:58
Speaker 1: you're going to go a different path. Let's get you
8:01
Speaker 1: in a different school here. Yeah. He was a photographer,
8:04
Speaker 1: so her first experiences with art were accompanying him on
8:08
Speaker 1: photo shoots and being in the studio with him. And
8:11
Speaker 1: like you said, he sent her to the German College
8:14
Speaker 1: in Mexico City, where she was introduced to European things,
8:19
Speaker 1: and um, very sadly, she was sexually abused there, uh,
8:24
Speaker 1: and then ended up going to and I think was
8:28
Speaker 1: one of the first, one of only thirty five girls,
8:31
Speaker 1: young girls to go to the National Preparatory School in
8:35
Speaker 1: Mexico because that was right around the time in the
8:38
Speaker 1: Mexican Revolution. He said, maybe we should start letting young
8:41
Speaker 1: women in here. Yeah, and then she wanted to be
8:43
Speaker 1: a doctor. Yeah. She excelled in in biology and some
8:46
Speaker 1: others in Mozana path to become a doctor. Actually, but
8:49
Speaker 1: one of the other things that she discovered at the
8:52
Speaker 1: UM the Preparatory Academy of Mexico City was a real
8:57
Speaker 1: zeal for the Mexican revolutionary spirit. Yeah. I mean not
9:03
Speaker 1: only did she learn about Europe, but she got really
9:05
Speaker 1: into learning about her indigenous roots. Um. That seems to
9:09
Speaker 1: be something that fascinated her throughout her life. Yeah, for sure,
9:12
Speaker 1: was her her European in her Mexican roots and how
9:16
Speaker 1: they combined in her and she explored them outwardly as well.
9:19
Speaker 1: She even had a painting called roots. Oh yeah, kind
9:22
Speaker 1: of on the nose, uh and roots were growing out
9:26
Speaker 1: of her body even um we we kind of skipped
9:30
Speaker 1: over one very important thing in her life. When she
9:33
Speaker 1: was six, Um, she contracted polio and long recovery permanently
9:38
Speaker 1: damaged one of her legs. She had a very one
9:41
Speaker 1: of her legs was I think her right leg was
9:44
Speaker 1: smaller and just very skinny, a little withered. Yeah, and
9:47
Speaker 1: she had a permanent limp from that age, which was
9:50
Speaker 1: a big deal. It was just the beginning of a
9:53
Speaker 1: lifetime of pretty horrendous um physical disabilities and pain. She
10:00
Speaker 1: was alive on the planet for forty seven years and
10:03
Speaker 1: starting at age six. You say that's when Poli she
10:08
Speaker 1: that's when it began, at the at the at the latest.
10:11
Speaker 1: It started at six and continued all the way up
10:14
Speaker 1: to forty seven when she died. So at the in
10:17
Speaker 1: this kind of revolutionary group that she joined, um the cuchus,
10:22
Speaker 1: which means the caps are the hats, which apparently today
10:25
Speaker 1: is Narco slang for cops into yeah, catchukastchas. It's hard
10:32
Speaker 1: to say yeah because of the two. Is it's like
10:38
Speaker 1: Jason's coming or something. Um. She she fell in love
10:42
Speaker 1: with kind of the leader of that group, but really
10:45
Speaker 1: like she found herself as a revolutionary, right and not
10:49
Speaker 1: just a Mexican revolutionary. She also became a communist ideologist
10:53
Speaker 1: and was for life. That's one thing that they a
10:56
Speaker 1: lot of people don't realize is free to free to Carlo,
10:59
Speaker 1: this pop culture icon, this patron saint of of women,
11:04
Speaker 1: um and feminists, was also very much a fervent communist. Actually,
11:10
Speaker 1: she referred to her husband later, Diego Rivera, who you're
11:13
Speaker 1: about to mention um as nobody's husband. He was a
11:16
Speaker 1: lousy husband, but he was a great comrade. This is
11:19
Speaker 1: a great quote. Yeah, so Ine, that's when she fell
11:23
Speaker 1: in love with Alejandro Gomez Eddias and uh they were
11:27
Speaker 1: together for about five years. And we'll get to kind
11:31
Speaker 1: of what happened towards the end of that relationship in
11:33
Speaker 1: a sec But in two and she was just fifteen.
11:36
Speaker 1: She was at school, uh, at the preparatory school. And
11:40
Speaker 1: Diego Rivera, who was very famous artist, a muralist at
11:43
Speaker 1: the time, already this giant man um like Alfred Molina's
11:48
Speaker 1: eye that's who played him, Um, even bigger, I think. Yeah.
11:52
Speaker 1: He was huge. Uh and you know, just tall and
11:55
Speaker 1: rotund and just a big personality and everything like Edward Herman. Sure. Yeah. Um.
12:02
Speaker 1: He was painting a mural at her school called Creation
12:05
Speaker 1: when she was just fifteen, and she would go out
12:07
Speaker 1: there and just basically kind of stare at him and
12:11
Speaker 1: while he was doing his work and sort of became
12:14
Speaker 1: infatuated with him and the art. I get the picture
12:19
Speaker 1: that it was all sort of intertwined, and uh, you know,
12:23
Speaker 1: years later they would meet and marry and then remarry,
12:25
Speaker 1: which we'll get into the ins and outs of their relationship,
12:29
Speaker 1: but it was it was an interesting love story of
12:32
Speaker 1: sorts artists. You know, should we take a break? All right,
12:37
Speaker 1: let's take a break and we will talk about the
12:39
Speaker 1: the tragic events that befell her at the age of eighteen. Okay, Chuck, So,
13:05
Speaker 1: like you said, something really bad is about to happen
13:07
Speaker 1: to Frida. She's eighteen. She was on a bus with
13:10
Speaker 1: a boyfriend who was the leader of the Yeah, and um,
13:15
Speaker 1: they the bus was struck by a trolley or vice versa.
13:19
Speaker 1: She was on a trolley struck by a bus, one
13:22
Speaker 1: of the two in either way. It was a bad,
13:25
Speaker 1: bad scene for her. Yeah, she was impaled by one
13:29
Speaker 1: of the handlebars. It went through pelvis into her womb,
13:32
Speaker 1: that's how I saw it. Put broke her spine. Um,
13:36
Speaker 1: she was in a bad way, and supposedly her boyfriend
13:41
Speaker 1: walked away unharmed, which just makes it even worse. You know. Yeah,
13:44
Speaker 1: I mean the way I got it was that, you know,
13:46
Speaker 1: everyone was shaking up pretty bad, but it was this
13:49
Speaker 1: sort of freak thing that this rail impaled her hip
13:55
Speaker 1: that that she got the worst of it. And this
13:57
Speaker 1: would go on to be, in my opinion, the most
14:00
Speaker 1: significant event of her entire life, because it would it
14:05
Speaker 1: changed everything. It changed the course of everything. Remember, up
14:08
Speaker 1: to this point, she's planning on becoming a doctor. UM,
14:12
Speaker 1: and she was so laid up for so long and
14:15
Speaker 1: so immobilized that she basically said, well, there goes my
14:19
Speaker 1: chance of being a doctor. I'm not going to be
14:21
Speaker 1: able to catch up. I'm not gonna be able to move.
14:22
Speaker 1: Who knows if I'll be able to walk again. Um,
14:26
Speaker 1: And it just shifted direction. Plus that whole womb thing
14:30
Speaker 1: is going to come into play later on and that
14:32
Speaker 1: will definitely influence her art for sure too. Yeah. So
14:36
Speaker 1: she's um, she's bedridden for months. I think she had
14:40
Speaker 1: something like thirteen or fifteen surgeries from that point on
14:44
Speaker 1: for the next like thirty years. UM. And it turns
14:49
Speaker 1: out that she was a great painter, which must have
14:52
Speaker 1: been something to be like, well, I'm in this hospital
14:56
Speaker 1: bed that they're equipping me with this special easel that
15:00
Speaker 1: I can use in my full body casts lying down.
15:03
Speaker 1: They're gonna put a mirror on on the ceiling above
15:07
Speaker 1: me so I can be my own model. And she
15:10
Speaker 1: was very much known for her self portraits. And she
15:13
Speaker 1: starts painting and is amazingly talented. Yeah, And at first
15:18
Speaker 1: she she was saying, Okay, well, I can't be a doctor,
15:20
Speaker 1: and apparently I have this knack for painting. Maybe I'll
15:23
Speaker 1: be a medical illustrator. And once you hear that, when
15:26
Speaker 1: you see some of her work, you're like, oh, yeah,
15:28
Speaker 1: she basically was a medical illustrator. Yeah, but in a
15:33
Speaker 1: exploring anatomy as a metaphor for emotion. Yes, from what
15:38
Speaker 1: I understand, right, Yeah, I mean I don't know, I
15:42
Speaker 1: mean this might be hyperbolic to say this, but I
15:46
Speaker 1: don't know if any artists that poured herself out on
15:50
Speaker 1: the canvas as much as she did. Certainly not up
15:53
Speaker 1: to the point, especially female artists. Oh yeah, absolutely, up
15:58
Speaker 1: to this point when when free Callo came along, like
16:02
Speaker 1: women were if you were emotional, you were hysterical one.
16:07
Speaker 1: But you certainly weren't if you were a woman artist,
16:09
Speaker 1: you certainly weren't expected to explore emotions and grief and
16:14
Speaker 1: personhood and the self. And you certainly weren't expected to
16:19
Speaker 1: do it in your paintings, And she said her works
16:22
Speaker 1: showed that that was not the case. It wasn't even
16:25
Speaker 1: like you shouldn't do this, it was women can't do this.
16:28
Speaker 1: And she came along and said, and actually we can,
16:30
Speaker 1: because I'm living proof. Yeah. And if you're a man,
16:33
Speaker 1: you're just a brooding artist. If you're a woman, you're hysterical. Um,
16:39
Speaker 1: you're depressed. And she just man, she laid it out
16:42
Speaker 1: there as raw as you could imagine, and especially for
16:46
Speaker 1: the time, it was just off the charts how radical
16:49
Speaker 1: it was. Right, so so, and she's able to do
16:51
Speaker 1: this because her family set up a special easel in
16:54
Speaker 1: a mirror for her to be her own model. Right, yes,
16:59
Speaker 1: so this is that, this big thing like this is
17:00
Speaker 1: starting to come along and she she um passes the
17:04
Speaker 1: time while she's recuperating doing this, and she recovers enough
17:07
Speaker 1: that she goes back to school and starts hanging out
17:09
Speaker 1: with her old friends again, and from that re entry
17:13
Speaker 1: back into the revolutionary slash communist world in Mexico at
17:18
Speaker 1: the time, she ended up in the orbit of Diego
17:22
Speaker 1: Rivera again. Actually they ran across each other at a party. Yeah,
17:26
Speaker 1: and this was it. Man. From that point forward, they
17:28
Speaker 1: would be um. They would be tied to one another
17:32
Speaker 1: through their work and through their multiple marriages to one another. Uh.
17:37
Speaker 1: She was twenty two, he was twenty years older than her. Uh.
17:42
Speaker 1: And he very much um he may he very much
17:45
Speaker 1: encouraged her early on yea and champion her and was
17:49
Speaker 1: her mentors and artists. Was. She went up to him
17:52
Speaker 1: at at this party and said, I want you to
17:54
Speaker 1: look at my work and tell me should I pursue it?
17:57
Speaker 1: To this? Am I an artist? Or is just nothing?
18:01
Speaker 1: And he looked at her work and he said, you
18:04
Speaker 1: were an artist? This is astounding, Like do you have
18:07
Speaker 1: what it takes? And you should keep pursuing being an
18:10
Speaker 1: artist in as a matter of fact, let's get married. Yeah.
18:13
Speaker 1: I mean he was attracted to her, but um, I
18:15
Speaker 1: haven't seen anything that that led me to believe that
18:18
Speaker 1: any of his support of her work was not genuine.
18:21
Speaker 1: And because he wanted to get her in the sack. No, no, no,
18:24
Speaker 1: he wasn't that kind of guy. He would get anybody
18:26
Speaker 1: in the sack. He certainly didn't have to marry you,
18:28
Speaker 1: and he certainly didn't have to tell you were a
18:30
Speaker 1: great artist that is below him. I saw a thing.
18:34
Speaker 1: They both had multiple affairs. We'll talk about that throughout
18:36
Speaker 1: their marriage, and you know, maybe or maybe not so
18:40
Speaker 1: understanding of each other doing so. Um, but I saw
18:44
Speaker 1: one point that he supposedly got his doctor to write
18:47
Speaker 1: a note that said that he was physically incapable of
18:50
Speaker 1: being faithful. Really, I don't know if that's true or not.
18:56
Speaker 1: So he had I just want to get this quote,
18:58
Speaker 1: and he had a great quote of about her um
19:01
Speaker 1: as an artist. He said that she was a realist
19:04
Speaker 1: as far as her arts concerned. She was quote the
19:07
Speaker 1: first woman in the history of art to treat with
19:10
Speaker 1: absolute and uncompromising honesty. One might even say cruelty those
19:15
Speaker 1: general and specific themes which exclusively affect women. Yeah, like
19:19
Speaker 1: that's those are pretty strong words from a renowned artist
19:22
Speaker 1: who I mean, Diego Rivera was well renowned by this
19:24
Speaker 1: time already, So when he looked at her art and
19:27
Speaker 1: had things like that to say about it, it really
19:29
Speaker 1: meant something. She was. If she ever was an outsider artist,
19:32
Speaker 1: she wasn't anymore. She was a genuine artist. She'd been
19:36
Speaker 1: decreed as such by the cream of the crop. Yeah,
19:39
Speaker 1: and she Um. I think the article on her own
19:42
Speaker 1: website downplays a little bit her successes during her life.
19:47
Speaker 1: It's certainly nothing compared to what she got many many
19:50
Speaker 1: years later, decades later after her death. Um, they weren't
19:54
Speaker 1: freedom maniacs back then, but she wasn't. She also was
19:57
Speaker 1: not just completely unknown as an artist. I mean, she
20:02
Speaker 1: got some notoriety during her life. She got to know Picasso,
20:06
Speaker 1: she got to know I mean, these were the circles
20:07
Speaker 1: she traveled in, partially because of Diego Rivera. But um,
20:12
Speaker 1: they started moving around, you know, starting in the nineteen thirties. Uh,
20:16
Speaker 1: they didn't stay in Mexico. They lived in San Francisco
20:18
Speaker 1: for a little while, uh, depending on where the work was.
20:20
Speaker 1: Because he was a muralist, right, so he had to
20:23
Speaker 1: go to the place where he was doing. Yeah, exactly.
20:25
Speaker 1: He can't say, I'm gonna send you a mural, just
20:27
Speaker 1: tape tape it up, send me a wall. And he
20:30
Speaker 1: had her in tow which I get the impression like
20:34
Speaker 1: sometimes she was a willing accomplice and other times she
20:37
Speaker 1: was very much homesick for Mexico. Yeah, she for sure
20:41
Speaker 1: miss Mexico. I know she did enjoy her time in
20:45
Speaker 1: like in New York and said, I don't know if
20:46
Speaker 1: she loved Detroit. I don't know if anybody didn't. They
20:50
Speaker 1: moved to Detroit while he worked for the Detroit Institute
20:53
Speaker 1: for the Arts, but very famously in the nineteen thirties
20:56
Speaker 1: they lived in New York City when Diego Rivero was
20:58
Speaker 1: commissioned by Nelson rocket Feller, who in the movie The
21:01
Speaker 1: Great Movie by Julie Taymore and Samahayak was played by
21:06
Speaker 1: Edward Norton. Oh yeah, have you not seen that movie? Man?
21:10
Speaker 1: It's good and once you hear the uh, especially with
21:14
Speaker 1: the backstory now with the Weinstein stuff coming out, I mean,
21:17
Speaker 1: this was her passion, Salamahayaks passion project for her life,
21:21
Speaker 1: and uh, he put her through a living hell. It's horrifying.
21:26
Speaker 1: I think it was. It might have been a New
21:27
Speaker 1: York or New York Times had a great article about it.
21:29
Speaker 1: But um or that she wrote, I think, But um,
21:33
Speaker 1: I think what got me on that was Edward Norton.
21:35
Speaker 1: Was he he rewrote the script for Like for Free
21:38
Speaker 1: because basically one of Harvey's picks things was like, I'm
21:42
Speaker 1: not gonna give you any money for this, Like you
21:44
Speaker 1: gotta do it for almost nothing. Everyone's gonna have to
21:47
Speaker 1: work for free. So she got everyone to work for
21:49
Speaker 1: free or you know scale uh. From Edward Norton to
21:53
Speaker 1: Julie Tamore, the great director and um, he he demanded
21:57
Speaker 1: a lesbian sex scene, like literally was like, I'm not
22:02
Speaker 1: doing this unless you do that. And she was bisexual,
22:06
Speaker 1: so it wasn't like he created this out of thin air,
22:09
Speaker 1: but he's like, I want to see this on screen. Um.
22:11
Speaker 1: She supposedly had affairs with George O'Keefe and Josephine Baker
22:16
Speaker 1: and all these famous female performers and artists, but she
22:20
Speaker 1: did not do that. I think she. I think she
22:22
Speaker 1: had a kissing scene with Ashley Judd at a party.
22:24
Speaker 1: Who is actually Judd supposed to be? I can't remember.
22:28
Speaker 1: I haven't seen it in a minute. Emily's mad that
22:31
Speaker 1: she's not here right now. I told her about this
22:33
Speaker 1: last night and she's like, why am I not honest?
22:34
Speaker 1: Like we don't have guests. She's like, I'm a guest
22:38
Speaker 1: on Movie Crush. I was like, well that's a different
22:40
Speaker 1: podcast altogether. Yeah, Um, she will pick this apart, trust me.
22:45
Speaker 1: But anyway, she had a devil of a time getting
22:47
Speaker 1: that movie made. Uh, and it went on to great
22:49
Speaker 1: success and I think still is the highest grossing art
22:53
Speaker 1: based movie of all time. Yeah, that's what I saw. Ye.
22:56
Speaker 1: So anyway, they were in New York City because Nelson Rockefeller,
23:00
Speaker 1: displayed Byward Norton, had commissioned Diego Rivera to paint a
23:04
Speaker 1: mural at Rockefeller Center called Man at the Crossroads. And
23:09
Speaker 1: in it it was one of these big um almost
23:12
Speaker 1: looked like a Sergeant Pepper's cover, you know, people all
23:15
Speaker 1: over the place. And um, he snuck in Vladimir Lenin
23:20
Speaker 1: in the painting. So I have a question about that.
23:22
Speaker 1: Did he sneak it in it was caught or was
23:24
Speaker 1: he like And also, by the way, I've included this
23:27
Speaker 1: great man Lenin. He snuck it in um as a response, uh,
23:32
Speaker 1: as a very pointed response to something. And I can't
23:36
Speaker 1: remember exactly what it was, but it wasn't originally in
23:39
Speaker 1: the plan and I don't know if it was in
23:40
Speaker 1: the original sketch. I might be getting this slightly wrong,
23:43
Speaker 1: but at any rate, he got Lenin in there, and um,
23:47
Speaker 1: Rockefeller was not happy. I mean, I think it was
23:50
Speaker 1: more of his family. Like he he stayed his friend.
23:53
Speaker 1: It wasn't like he was like, I hate you your
23:55
Speaker 1: big poopy bands. Go back to Mexico. But he stopped
24:00
Speaker 1: the work. That painting was mural, was removed and destroyed.
24:04
Speaker 1: But eventually was it destroyed. Yeah, man, pretty sad. But
24:11
Speaker 1: eventually um Rivera recreated that a little smaller in Mexico
24:16
Speaker 1: City and changed the title to Man Controller of the
24:19
Speaker 1: Universe and then in parentheses up yours Rockefeller. Maybe so,
24:25
Speaker 1: but that just sort of puts a button on them.
24:28
Speaker 1: Moving kind of all around the United States for a while.
24:30
Speaker 1: And this is when she was being introduced to high
24:33
Speaker 1: society and and uh everyone from like I said, Josephine
24:37
Speaker 1: Baker too, to Trotsky and she was she was working
24:42
Speaker 1: at the time to write It's what. It wasn't like
24:44
Speaker 1: she was just hanging out. She was still painting. And
24:46
Speaker 1: one of the paintings she um did was um the
24:49
Speaker 1: Suicide of Dorothy Hale. Yeah, that was interesting. So she
24:53
Speaker 1: was commissioned by Claire loose Booth little Deuce Coope. She
24:58
Speaker 1: was the she was from the publishing family of Time.
25:02
Speaker 1: I think she published Vanity Fair or something like that.
25:04
Speaker 1: She's a great publishing magnate um And this was back
25:07
Speaker 1: in the thirties, and she was friends with Dorothy Hale,
25:11
Speaker 1: who was a an actress, a well known actress who
25:14
Speaker 1: had hit on hard times financially and was having to
25:17
Speaker 1: live on the um generosity of her friends. And she
25:20
Speaker 1: climbed up to the highest point of the high rise
25:23
Speaker 1: that she lived off of inn jumped to her death
25:26
Speaker 1: and devastated Claire booth Loose and I hope I get
25:32
Speaker 1: that right at least somewhere, and who was her friend?
25:35
Speaker 1: And she commissioned Freda Calo to Um to do a
25:39
Speaker 1: painting which she thought this would be a portrait to
25:41
Speaker 1: commemorate my friend Dorothy. That's not at all what fred
25:45
Speaker 1: to Callo did. Yeah, I don't know she realized who
25:47
Speaker 1: she was commissioning fully, like have you seen her work? Right?
25:51
Speaker 1: So what Freda Calo did was she took this assignment
25:55
Speaker 1: and and commemorated not Dorothy Hale necessarily, but Dorothy Hails
26:01
Speaker 1: death by suicide. It's it's almost like a step by
26:04
Speaker 1: step diagram. It shows her at the top of the
26:07
Speaker 1: building in mid air, and then in the foreground. Largest
26:11
Speaker 1: of all is her broken, bloody body on the ground,
26:14
Speaker 1: but it has this very somber um text caption basically
26:20
Speaker 1: across the bottom in a scroll that explains what this
26:23
Speaker 1: is and that's how sad this is um and that
26:26
Speaker 1: it was the suicide of Dorothy Hale and so um.
26:30
Speaker 1: Apparently when Claire Uh booth Loose got got this, she
26:34
Speaker 1: unwrapped it and was like, what is this gag? And
26:39
Speaker 1: she was going to destroy it, and friends talked her
26:41
Speaker 1: out of it. So it's still in existence today. From
26:43
Speaker 1: what I understand, I think the booth or Loose family
26:47
Speaker 1: has has the uh the painting in their possession now. Yeah,
26:50
Speaker 1: And that's uh just emblematic of Frieda's outlook, which was
26:57
Speaker 1: like she was no bs. She's like, I'm gonna show
27:00
Speaker 1: you what's real. So let me ask you this. You're
27:03
Speaker 1: the freedom expert here between the two of us. Was
27:07
Speaker 1: she doing that like like I'm all in your face, Claire,
27:10
Speaker 1: this is the reality of your friend's suicide or was
27:13
Speaker 1: it she this is this was her expression of emotion
27:18
Speaker 1: that she thought Claire, I'm not saying her last two names,
27:22
Speaker 1: would would would kind of vibe on and like this
27:25
Speaker 1: would be the greatest commemoration of her friend, which one. Well,
27:29
Speaker 1: I don't think it was all in your face. I
27:31
Speaker 1: think she thought that was the honesty. I think she
27:34
Speaker 1: thought that was the most honest work. But I'm not
27:37
Speaker 1: sure whether or not she considered like, wait a minute,
27:40
Speaker 1: is she gonna hate this? Okay? So she wasn't like,
27:42
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter she hates it. This is the this
27:45
Speaker 1: is the most honest work. So even if this psychologically
27:49
Speaker 1: destroys her, Claire needs is tough enough. I'm very curious.
27:52
Speaker 1: That's a good question. I don't know. I understand a
27:54
Speaker 1: lot of the symbolism and her paintings now, but I
27:57
Speaker 1: don't necessarily I haven't hit upon her motivation or person
28:00
Speaker 1: reality quite yet. Family is gonna be so mad because
28:02
Speaker 1: she read her biography and she's probably like, oh, we'll
28:05
Speaker 1: read page six, right, jerks, and that will explain at all.
28:09
Speaker 1: Sorry again, Emily, that's right. Do you want to take
28:12
Speaker 1: a break, Yeah, let's do okay, alright, Chuck. So one
28:35
Speaker 1: other thing, very big thing happened to her in Detroit,
28:39
Speaker 1: actually um, and she has a painting that commemorates it,
28:43
Speaker 1: called henry Ford Hospital. She had her second miscarriage, and
28:48
Speaker 1: this her miscarriages. I believe she's just head the two
28:52
Speaker 1: I think so. Um, but that's all right. Um. She
28:58
Speaker 1: those would affect and influence her work for the rest
29:02
Speaker 1: of her life. They deeply impacted her, and not just
29:06
Speaker 1: emotionally impacted her. But they were themed she explored, you know,
29:10
Speaker 1: like can you still be a mother to other things
29:13
Speaker 1: even if you don't bear your own children? Can you? Um?
29:16
Speaker 1: You know, like like how does it affect your femininity?
29:19
Speaker 1: That's it's it's a theme that really affected her and
29:21
Speaker 1: she explored, and it really is just right there in
29:26
Speaker 1: broad bold colors in henry Ford Hospital. Yeah. I mean
29:31
Speaker 1: she she very famously had was a mother too many animals.
29:35
Speaker 1: She had spider monkeys, she had dogs, cats, birds, she
29:39
Speaker 1: had a pet deer, um all at her at her house. Uh.
29:44
Speaker 1: We have a great children's book called that I recommend
29:46
Speaker 1: called Fred to Calla and her animalitos. Uh. That's really
29:50
Speaker 1: really fun for kids, but um and adults actually, But yeah,
29:54
Speaker 1: she really wanted to be a mother and it was
29:56
Speaker 1: devastating to her that she couldn't be. Uh. And like
29:59
Speaker 1: you said, with all her work so raw and laid bare. Um.
30:04
Speaker 1: And I assume most people have seen her work, Like
30:07
Speaker 1: we'll talk about some of it a little bit. It
30:09
Speaker 1: wouldn't hurt to kind of brush up on these if
30:11
Speaker 1: you have a couple of tabs handy while we're talking. Yeah,
30:14
Speaker 1: but lots of blood, lots of um exposed organ blood
30:18
Speaker 1: vessels connecting her to things. Yeah, it's just um, it's
30:23
Speaker 1: like you said, you don't have to work hard to
30:25
Speaker 1: understand what she's getting at when there's a painting of
30:28
Speaker 1: her with her like body cavity split open and like
30:32
Speaker 1: a baby bunny where her womb is. Actually, I think
30:36
Speaker 1: I just made that part of That's a great idea.
30:38
Speaker 1: I like that imagery. It wouldn't surprise me if that
30:40
Speaker 1: was one of her paintings. You know. Um, there was
30:43
Speaker 1: a lot of pain, physical pain depicted in her paintings.
30:47
Speaker 1: And this is another huge theme or motif for whatever
30:51
Speaker 1: you want to call it, um to where her the
30:54
Speaker 1: physical pain depicted. And again remember she's painting herself almost
30:57
Speaker 1: exclusively here. Um her emotional pain is depicted as physical pain,
31:03
Speaker 1: so like nails all over her body, or she has
31:06
Speaker 1: a huge terror going vertically up the middle of her body,
31:10
Speaker 1: and her spine is a doric column that's crumbling. Just
31:14
Speaker 1: just physical imagery that it did depict her physical pain too.
31:18
Speaker 1: She was always in a lot of pain throughout her
31:21
Speaker 1: life physically, but she also suffered a lot of emotional
31:23
Speaker 1: and psychic pain as well, and all of it was
31:26
Speaker 1: combined as physical pain and evisceration and being laid open
31:31
Speaker 1: in her paintings. Yeah, and uh, eventually she would meet
31:34
Speaker 1: Andre is it is it Beton or Breton, the father
31:41
Speaker 1: of surrealism? Yeah, and he is the one. Uh. She actually, um,
31:46
Speaker 1: in a funny way, kind of said she never considered
31:48
Speaker 1: herself as surrealist until Andre Breton came to Mexico and
31:52
Speaker 1: told me I was one. Really, I do not know
31:55
Speaker 1: whether my paintings are surrealists or not, but I do
31:57
Speaker 1: know that they're the Frankist expression of myself. Um. But
32:00
Speaker 1: she's if you want to classify her art wise, surrealism
32:04
Speaker 1: or magic surrealism is uh definitely categories that her A
32:08
Speaker 1: lot of her work fits under. So I saw a
32:10
Speaker 1: m I mean, we used a lot of sites for this.
32:13
Speaker 1: I can't remember which when it came from, but I
32:15
Speaker 1: saw a description of her work as um that she
32:18
Speaker 1: was an individualist, which means like she was her own thing.
32:23
Speaker 1: She may have had influences, and she definitely had Mexican
32:27
Speaker 1: indigenous art influenced. That's a huge thing that really drives
32:31
Speaker 1: like the visual um impact of her paintings. But as
32:35
Speaker 1: far as like schools of art go or movements she was,
32:39
Speaker 1: she tapped into primitivism, indigenism, magic realism, surrealism, and um. Again,
32:47
Speaker 1: all of it combined to make her an individualist artist. Well, yeah,
32:52
Speaker 1: you mentioned the her indigenous roots and and she very
32:57
Speaker 1: much and and I think Diego Rivera is one who
32:59
Speaker 1: really incur urged her to embrace that, and she started
33:03
Speaker 1: she kind of I mean, she wore suits and stuff
33:05
Speaker 1: sometimes since she was a kid, but she wore more
33:08
Speaker 1: European style of clothing when she was younger, and then
33:11
Speaker 1: really started wearing more Mexican indigenous stuff. Yeah, really colorful stuff.
33:17
Speaker 1: And most famously captured in maybe her most famous painting,
33:22
Speaker 1: the Two Frida's in nine nine. It's the double self
33:25
Speaker 1: portrait that on one side shows her in the more
33:29
Speaker 1: modern European clothing um, and then on the other side
33:33
Speaker 1: it's her in her more indigenous Mexican clothing, and both
33:38
Speaker 1: of them have their hearts exposed. I think on the
33:40
Speaker 1: European side, the arteries are severed and things. On the
33:43
Speaker 1: Mexican side, it's intact. The heart is intact, really really pretty.
33:49
Speaker 1: It is very pretty. A lot of her work was pretty.
33:52
Speaker 1: Some of it sometimes it's like it looks very primitive,
33:56
Speaker 1: and then other times they're in some details like the
33:59
Speaker 1: eye as of a cat or something like that, You're like, wow,
34:02
Speaker 1: that's really it's very like almost photo realistic. Yeah, so
34:07
Speaker 1: it's it's very weird to me how her Um, I
34:11
Speaker 1: don't want to say her talent, but her Yeah, her
34:14
Speaker 1: visual talents kind of we're applied in some places and
34:18
Speaker 1: not not as much in others. And I'm wondering what
34:22
Speaker 1: the details were that that made her make those decisions. Yeah,
34:25
Speaker 1: she included her pets and a lot of her paintings.
34:27
Speaker 1: I think fifty five of her paintings featured her pets.
34:30
Speaker 1: Um some very famous ones with her her spider, monkeys
34:33
Speaker 1: and birds on her shoulder. My favorite one is called
34:36
Speaker 1: What the Water Gave Me Um. It's a it's a
34:40
Speaker 1: only guess. This's a self portrait in a way of
34:42
Speaker 1: her in a bathtub from her vantage points, so you
34:45
Speaker 1: just see her her feet and toes sticking out at
34:47
Speaker 1: the end of the tub and then the water is
34:50
Speaker 1: just full of all kinds of other stuff, Like I
34:53
Speaker 1: don't think I've seen that one. It's really nice. Like
34:55
Speaker 1: there's a volcano with the Empire State building coming out
34:58
Speaker 1: of the center of it, with like and grennius lava
35:01
Speaker 1: flowing over the sides. Because she would get gang green
35:04
Speaker 1: later in life, just another physical malady, and had one
35:07
Speaker 1: of her legs amputated below the knee. Uh. There was
35:11
Speaker 1: a dead bird, a one legged bird, um being pierced
35:15
Speaker 1: by a tree. There's a nude woman floating next to
35:18
Speaker 1: her dress looks like her parents on their wedding day,
35:22
Speaker 1: and it's it's all like in the bathtub water um
35:25
Speaker 1: with her feet and toes sticking out. One toe of course,
35:29
Speaker 1: is is mangled and cracked and bloody. Um. There was
35:32
Speaker 1: so much gruesome, so many gruesome aspects to so much
35:36
Speaker 1: of her work, but um, it kind of punches you
35:39
Speaker 1: in the gut very much like it's. To see these
35:41
Speaker 1: things in person is like, especially if you're a fan
35:45
Speaker 1: of her work, to actually stand in front of one
35:47
Speaker 1: of them and put your nose six inches from it
35:50
Speaker 1: is is really pretty pretty astounding. Do not sneeze, Do
35:56
Speaker 1: not sneeze on the art. They have signs everywhere. This article,
36:00
Speaker 1: our Howstuff Works article points out the Wounded Deer and
36:04
Speaker 1: My Birth both in the same paragraph. Here. Those are
36:07
Speaker 1: two of my favorites. Actually, my birth is so just
36:11
Speaker 1: just twisted, but it's also really simple and straightforward. It's
36:14
Speaker 1: her mother, but you assume it's her mother. The sheets
36:18
Speaker 1: actually placed over her mother's head, so you never see
36:21
Speaker 1: her face, and you also kind of get the impression
36:24
Speaker 1: that it could be freed to as well. Um, but
36:27
Speaker 1: it's Frieda's head, grown up Frieda like coming out of
36:31
Speaker 1: the birth canal, the womb as it were. I feel
36:34
Speaker 1: like such like a nineteenth century like white guy calling
36:37
Speaker 1: it a womb, you know, but um, yeah, it is graphic,
36:41
Speaker 1: but it's also it looks it kind of I don't know.
36:46
Speaker 1: I don't want to armchair critique it or anything like that.
36:50
Speaker 1: I just like that one. Um, and then uh, the
36:53
Speaker 1: Wounded Deer I think is awesome too. Yeah, we should
36:56
Speaker 1: probably apologize to every art historian and critic. Like when
37:01
Speaker 1: it comes to art, I love, and I know you
37:02
Speaker 1: do too, love going to museums and you're probably where
37:05
Speaker 1: I am, which is I just like what I like, like,
37:09
Speaker 1: you know, if it looks nice to me, and nice
37:12
Speaker 1: doesn't mean oh that's pretty, but you know, if if
37:16
Speaker 1: it touches me in some way, I'm like, I like that. Sure,
37:19
Speaker 1: I don't supposed to do. I enjoy reading the placards
37:23
Speaker 1: and then understanding a bit more behind it. But I'm
37:25
Speaker 1: definitely not some art historian or critic, although I do
37:29
Speaker 1: appreciate being having art explained to me by our historians
37:33
Speaker 1: and people who know, like Sister Wendy, that whole series
37:36
Speaker 1: from the eighties or nineties, I don't know that. Oh man,
37:39
Speaker 1: I've told you about before. She's this nun who understands
37:42
Speaker 1: art better than anybody in the world, and so like
37:44
Speaker 1: a little PBS series for a while where she could
37:47
Speaker 1: just explain art and you just wanted to watch the
37:50
Speaker 1: next episode so bad. Yeah, But I think the level
37:52
Speaker 1: that you and I are at that you were characterizing
37:55
Speaker 1: is um it was best captured on a Simpsons There
38:00
Speaker 1: was a museum audio tour that was narrated by Melanie Griffith,
38:05
Speaker 1: and when they put it on press place, She's like, Oh,
38:07
Speaker 1: let's see what's in this room. Oh, this one's nice.
38:10
Speaker 1: I like this one. Oh look at that one, what's
38:13
Speaker 1: in the next room. That's the level we're at of
38:16
Speaker 1: understanding and appreciating art, Melanie Griffith level. Uh we we
38:22
Speaker 1: briefly mentioned Leon Trotsky earlier, the exile Communists and rival
38:25
Speaker 1: to Stalin Um. They were friends and and they hosted him.
38:30
Speaker 1: She and Diego Rivera at the Blue House and supposedly
38:32
Speaker 1: had a brief affair um, although other people have questioned
38:37
Speaker 1: whether or not was whether or not she really did
38:40
Speaker 1: because of I think last year a lot of her
38:43
Speaker 1: love letters to Diego were published. Yeah, and it's really
38:48
Speaker 1: interesting their relationship. You know, they divorced in ninety nine,
38:52
Speaker 1: um remarried the next year. In lived in separate houses.
38:58
Speaker 1: They both had their infidelity. Is but um a really
39:02
Speaker 1: interesting complex relationship UM mentor student lovers, friends, rivals as
39:10
Speaker 1: well in some cases. Uh, but it's hard to obviously
39:17
Speaker 1: as an outsider encapsulated on a podcast, but a very
39:21
Speaker 1: complex relationship full of respect and admiration on some levels.
39:26
Speaker 1: But also uh, he was also that you know, sort
39:30
Speaker 1: of of the time in Mexico and America, just that
39:33
Speaker 1: male macho thing going on. I mean, for goodness sakes,
39:38
Speaker 1: he tried to have his doctor write a note the
39:40
Speaker 1: city was physically capable of being faithful. So let's just
39:44
Speaker 1: say male dominant complex marriage and relationship. Well, I also
39:48
Speaker 1: saw she could kind of, you know, put up with
39:51
Speaker 1: his affairs and and she definitely had her own. But
39:54
Speaker 1: supposedly he his affair with her younger sister, like really
39:59
Speaker 1: trusted her. That was I think led directly to their divorce. Yeah,
40:03
Speaker 1: I could see that. Yeah, that was uncool. Yeah, diego, Yeah,
40:08
Speaker 1: even with the doctor's note, diego. Yeah. And he died
40:11
Speaker 1: just a few years after her, I believe right. I
40:14
Speaker 1: don't know when he died, actually, yeah, I think he
40:16
Speaker 1: died three years after her. Um. By the nineteen fifties,
40:22
Speaker 1: her health was really declining. She kept having these surgeries,
40:25
Speaker 1: kept painting. Nineteen fifty three she had a solo exhibition
40:30
Speaker 1: and man, she couldn't get around. And this is so
40:33
Speaker 1: great in the movie. They she wasn't gonna go at all.
40:36
Speaker 1: And then they brought her in by ambulance, brought in
40:38
Speaker 1: a four poster bed and that's where she was in
40:41
Speaker 1: the gallery. She was laying in bed like greeting people. Yeah,
40:45
Speaker 1: she received everyone while she was in bed, bedridden. Pretty amazing.
40:50
Speaker 1: And she died a couple of weeks later. I think, actually,
40:53
Speaker 1: I think the last time she was seen in public
40:55
Speaker 1: she showed up for a protest against the US back
40:59
Speaker 1: coup that overthrow overthrew our bends in Guatemala. Yeah, Edward
41:03
Speaker 1: Burne's coming back in right into the picture every time. Um.
41:09
Speaker 1: And she she died again at age forty seven, man
41:11
Speaker 1: after a life of pain, but a very very productive
41:14
Speaker 1: life of pain to change things quite a bit. Yeah.
41:18
Speaker 1: And with her death, she um, it's listed as pulmonary embolism,
41:22
Speaker 1: but they never did an autopsy in there. It's generally
41:25
Speaker 1: believed that she committed suicide. How pills her Her personal
41:31
Speaker 1: nurse said that she took twelve I think pain killers
41:37
Speaker 1: when she knew that her max was seven, and earlier
41:40
Speaker 1: that evening she had given Diego an anniversary present a
41:43
Speaker 1: month early, which it all kind of adds up in
41:47
Speaker 1: the chronic pain. And just you know, this was after polio,
41:52
Speaker 1: after gang Green, after amputation, after pneumonia, after the bus accident,
41:57
Speaker 1: after the bus accident, so um, yeah, she may have
42:00
Speaker 1: just ended it understandably. Yeah. So her when she died,
42:05
Speaker 1: like you said, she was you know, fairly well known
42:09
Speaker 1: in certain circles in the art world. But when she died,
42:12
Speaker 1: her work kind of entered into obscurity for a few
42:15
Speaker 1: decades and then yeah, it's well put. And then in
42:19
Speaker 1: the late seventies it was rediscovered. Um bye bye. I
42:23
Speaker 1: guess nationalists you could call them art nationalists in Mexico.
42:28
Speaker 1: And she has been basically a pop icon ever since.
42:32
Speaker 1: Once her story was really um established and built and
42:36
Speaker 1: her work came back out, she's just never really left
42:40
Speaker 1: the art scene since, which is pretty cool, very cool. Uh.
42:45
Speaker 1: If she is in a museum near you go check
42:48
Speaker 1: it out. Do you want to do you want to
42:50
Speaker 1: talk about her famous eyebrow, because I think this this
42:53
Speaker 1: article did a really good job of addressing it. Yeah,
42:57
Speaker 1: so she has she painted herself. She very famously had
43:01
Speaker 1: what you would call a unibrow, right, and she would
43:04
Speaker 1: paint it a lot. But the article on how Stuff
43:07
Speaker 1: Works quotes a um a book by Desmond Morris called
43:11
Speaker 1: The Naked Woman a study of the female body, and
43:14
Speaker 1: he basically says Desmond Morris says that like women will
43:18
Speaker 1: will pluck the their unibrow into nothingness like religiously, and
43:25
Speaker 1: that it takes a woman who is above fashion too
43:29
Speaker 1: to flaunt her unibrow, and that that perfectly that that
43:33
Speaker 1: term above fashion perfectly encapsulates free to call o, which
43:38
Speaker 1: I thought was a pretty cool thing because the Desmond
43:40
Speaker 1: Morris wasn't talking about free to callo. This article went
43:43
Speaker 1: out of its way to go find that and bring
43:44
Speaker 1: it in and I think it analyzes her appreciation of
43:48
Speaker 1: herself inside and out pretty well. Yeah. I mean, if
43:51
Speaker 1: that was one thing that she did on her canvas
43:53
Speaker 1: was say this is met in every single way inside
43:57
Speaker 1: and out, and her her leg see in the art world,
44:02
Speaker 1: especially among among women and female artists, is like the
44:07
Speaker 1: the one article we read. City just can't overstate the importance.
44:12
Speaker 1: Nice got anything else? No, I apologize for all the mistakes. Yeah, sorry,
44:18
Speaker 1: let's do Andy Warhol one. Next. I tried to do
44:21
Speaker 1: right by this one. Okay, yeah, okay, I apologizing to
44:25
Speaker 1: Emily specifically, right. Sorry. Uh. If you want, if you're
44:30
Speaker 1: not Emily and you want to know more about free
44:32
Speaker 1: to Call Up, you can search her on our website.
44:36
Speaker 1: There's actually a pretty decent little article and then there's
44:39
Speaker 1: tons of stuff. Go look at our art all over
44:41
Speaker 1: the web and in person. And since I said that
44:43
Speaker 1: as time for listener mail, I'm gonna call this mistakes
44:49
Speaker 1: in defense of us. Hey, guys, I'm sure you get
44:51
Speaker 1: annoyed at the influx of emails you get every time
44:53
Speaker 1: you make a mistake on your podcast. At least that's
44:55
Speaker 1: what I gleaned from a few recent episodes where you
44:58
Speaker 1: anticipate people and correcting you want to fact how ironic, Um,
45:04
Speaker 1: I'm writing the counterbalance that you guys do a fantastic job.
45:07
Speaker 1: I'm amazed that you were able to cover topics in
45:09
Speaker 1: such detail, with such high turnover rate, with how quickly
45:12
Speaker 1: produce episodes. I would expect so many more mistakes or
45:15
Speaker 1: sloppy work. But not not with you. Excuse me, no,
45:20
Speaker 1: not with you. I kind of like not not. Um.
45:23
Speaker 1: I'm starting my own podcast, and it's made me deeply
45:25
Speaker 1: appreciative of how talented and gifted you guys are as host.
45:28
Speaker 1: One day, I hope I'll be as smooth and easy
45:30
Speaker 1: going as you are as always. Please keep going with
45:33
Speaker 1: your work. You're my favorite podcast. Also want to give
45:36
Speaker 1: a shout out, especially to your Trail of Tears episodes.
45:39
Speaker 1: I recently went into the archives and listened to those two. Uh,
45:42
Speaker 1: you told that story beautifully. I think you really did
45:44
Speaker 1: it justice and I would recommend that anyone who hasn't
45:47
Speaker 1: listened and go back and listen anyway, seriously, thank you
45:49
Speaker 1: for adding something fun to my life. And that great
45:53
Speaker 1: name is from uh Shelina Bathala or maybe Batala depending
45:59
Speaker 1: on how you burn out uh. And she is the host.
46:02
Speaker 1: And I asked her, well, you're a bad plugger of
46:05
Speaker 1: your own work because I don't even know what your
46:07
Speaker 1: podcast is going to be about, but it's coming soon.
46:09
Speaker 1: It's called worth It. Yeah, good title. Yeah, everyone, that
46:15
Speaker 1: is how you get your podcast plugged on stuff? That's right?
46:19
Speaker 1: Who whoa whoa breaking news? Oh yeah, came back to life. No.
46:24
Speaker 1: I just got an email reply from Shelina and she said,
46:27
Speaker 1: my podcast is about helping people create a life that
46:30
Speaker 1: they're happy with. I think a lot of people feel lost,
46:34
Speaker 1: don't feel connected to themselves, or feel scared to do
46:37
Speaker 1: what they actually want to do, like pursue a creative
46:39
Speaker 1: career or do something that makes far less money. So
46:41
Speaker 1: I talked to people who have been there who are
46:43
Speaker 1: still there about their journey and what they have done
46:46
Speaker 1: to create happiness in their life. It's gonna be good. Yeah,
46:49
Speaker 1: good job. That sounds great. Yeah, hurry up, Shelina, Yeah okay,
46:52
Speaker 1: best of luck with worth it coming soon to a
46:55
Speaker 1: podcast distributor near you wherever you find your podcast right
47:00
Speaker 1: uh And if you want to get in touch with us,
47:02
Speaker 1: you can tweet to us at s y s K
47:04
Speaker 1: podcast um. You can also hang out with us on
47:07
Speaker 1: Facebook at Facebook dot com slash Stuff you Should Know.
47:10
Speaker 1: You can send us all an email the Stuff podcast
47:12
Speaker 1: at how Stuff Works dot com, and there's always joining
47:14
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47:20
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47:22
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