#Sexypink/Brooklyn Museum/Frida Kahlo

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Frida Kahlo in Brooklyn for February 2019

Clothes were more than just clothes to Frida Kahlo (1907-1954), the Mexican tyro of Surrealist self-portraiture. This should be underscored by “Frida Kahlo: Appearances Can Be Deceiving,” an exhibition — based on one by the Victoria and Albert Museum in London — which opens Feb. 8 at the Brooklyn Museum. Combining beautifully embroidered blouses and colorful peasant skirts with outsize jewelry both ancient and contemporary, Kahlo’s ensembles were in today’s jargon assiduously “curated.” They celebrated Mexico’s indigenous cultures; imbued her frail, damaged body with a powerful aura; and displayed an early grasp of the fluidity of gender and identity. The totality amounted to a continual homage to a defiant multifaceted Otherness that was central to her finely detailed paintings and captured in staged photographs. The exhibition will also include examples from Brooklyn’s holdings of Meso-American objects like those collected by Kahlo and her husband, Diego Rivera. Expect her intense presence and unparalleled sensibility to achieve liftoff. ROBERTA SMITH