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You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/sep/04/frida-kahlo-communist-proud-v-and-a-gift-shop-affordable-pricey
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| Frida Kahlo was a communist and proud. What would she think of the V&A gift shop? | Frida Kahlo was a communist and proud. What would she think of the V&A gift shop? |
| (14 days later) | |
| The best way to judge art is by the gift shop. Why so-called art critics do it any other way, I fail to understand. Run around an exhibition – it’s a shame when they don’t let you take pictures for Instagram but it happens – then get to the shop. You need a Van Gogh tea towel, a Basquiat T-shirt, a Keith Haring lunchbox, or just some badges and expensive pencils. It’s a souvenir from a place you went to, and were moved by – what’s wrong with that? | The best way to judge art is by the gift shop. Why so-called art critics do it any other way, I fail to understand. Run around an exhibition – it’s a shame when they don’t let you take pictures for Instagram but it happens – then get to the shop. You need a Van Gogh tea towel, a Basquiat T-shirt, a Keith Haring lunchbox, or just some badges and expensive pencils. It’s a souvenir from a place you went to, and were moved by – what’s wrong with that? |
| Frida Kahlo: Making Her Self Up review – forget the paintings, here's her false leg | |
| I spent a while this week waiting in the enormous gift shop at the V&A as my daughter was still looking at the exhibition Frida Kahlo: Making Herself Up. She was entranced. Kahlo does that. Her broken body, her relics – the lipstick, the perfume, the jewellery. It’s a shrine. Who wouldn’t bow down before her pain, her passion, her power? Seen through a modern lens, this artist understood branding very well. Her self-creation was defiance. The directness of her gaze is itself a feminist act, the aestheticising of her disabilities is resistance. The complexity, the colour, the huge intelligence – all of it is compelling. | I spent a while this week waiting in the enormous gift shop at the V&A as my daughter was still looking at the exhibition Frida Kahlo: Making Herself Up. She was entranced. Kahlo does that. Her broken body, her relics – the lipstick, the perfume, the jewellery. It’s a shrine. Who wouldn’t bow down before her pain, her passion, her power? Seen through a modern lens, this artist understood branding very well. Her self-creation was defiance. The directness of her gaze is itself a feminist act, the aestheticising of her disabilities is resistance. The complexity, the colour, the huge intelligence – all of it is compelling. |
| But not somehow as compelling to me as the size of the gift shop. I don’t want to dress up as Frida Kahlo, but a lot of middle-aged women do. “The fandom”, as my teenager refers to them. There was so much Mexican stuff on sale, which I love, and so many books. Small gifts, and majorly pricey ones. At first I wanted to buy it all and then none of it, because there was simply too much. Don’t get me wrong. I love a gift shop. I love the V&A. I love Frida. In my lifetime, but after hers, she has gone from being a feminist secret to being big enough to be depicted as a Barbie doll – though her family managed to temporarily stop that in the end – the doll was too white, too thin. | But not somehow as compelling to me as the size of the gift shop. I don’t want to dress up as Frida Kahlo, but a lot of middle-aged women do. “The fandom”, as my teenager refers to them. There was so much Mexican stuff on sale, which I love, and so many books. Small gifts, and majorly pricey ones. At first I wanted to buy it all and then none of it, because there was simply too much. Don’t get me wrong. I love a gift shop. I love the V&A. I love Frida. In my lifetime, but after hers, she has gone from being a feminist secret to being big enough to be depicted as a Barbie doll – though her family managed to temporarily stop that in the end – the doll was too white, too thin. |
| There is some great stuff to buy: replicas of her fabulous sunglasses. For this, after all, is largely an exhibition of her stuff, and that stuff moves us; the plaster casts she wore, with the baby she would never have drawn on. The prosthetic leg. And then she is there on film – in black and white with Trotsky, in colour with her husband Diego Rivera. Such modern people! What’s not to love? Let’s not worry too much about cultural appropriation as Kahlo herself appropriated the clothes of the peasant class. Skip over her bisexuality and her politics, and put some flowers in your hair. | There is some great stuff to buy: replicas of her fabulous sunglasses. For this, after all, is largely an exhibition of her stuff, and that stuff moves us; the plaster casts she wore, with the baby she would never have drawn on. The prosthetic leg. And then she is there on film – in black and white with Trotsky, in colour with her husband Diego Rivera. Such modern people! What’s not to love? Let’s not worry too much about cultural appropriation as Kahlo herself appropriated the clothes of the peasant class. Skip over her bisexuality and her politics, and put some flowers in your hair. |
| On TripAdvisor, which bulldozes everything wonderful into low-level mediocre whining, I note the gift shop issue arises in Mexico, too. About Casa Azul, her actual house; in a review headed “Crappy Gift Shop”, some self-appointed expert writes “Pretty house and grounds but crappy gift shop – many shelves are bare. Little to buy. Cafe sells drinks only.” Fellow connoisseurs chip in that there are no “quality goods”, just “overpriced paraphernalia”. | On TripAdvisor, which bulldozes everything wonderful into low-level mediocre whining, I note the gift shop issue arises in Mexico, too. About Casa Azul, her actual house; in a review headed “Crappy Gift Shop”, some self-appointed expert writes “Pretty house and grounds but crappy gift shop – many shelves are bare. Little to buy. Cafe sells drinks only.” Fellow connoisseurs chip in that there are no “quality goods”, just “overpriced paraphernalia”. |
| Oh Frida, did you paint a hammer and sickle on your plaster body cast for nothing? In your final days, fuzzy with painkillers, you painted yourself with Stalin. A votive. It’s not a very good painting, your precision had gone, but your devotion was clear. You were a communist and proud; a T-shirt, with your image, bearing the slogan “I am literally a Stalinist” – would that sell, I wonder? I was recently at the Stalin museum in Georgia, and I hate to tell you but its gift shop is really not up to scratch. Frida’s brand is way more marketable. | Oh Frida, did you paint a hammer and sickle on your plaster body cast for nothing? In your final days, fuzzy with painkillers, you painted yourself with Stalin. A votive. It’s not a very good painting, your precision had gone, but your devotion was clear. You were a communist and proud; a T-shirt, with your image, bearing the slogan “I am literally a Stalinist” – would that sell, I wonder? I was recently at the Stalin museum in Georgia, and I hate to tell you but its gift shop is really not up to scratch. Frida’s brand is way more marketable. |
| Labour’s inertia has allowed Gordon Brown to ride to the rescue | Labour’s inertia has allowed Gordon Brown to ride to the rescue |
| Whatever happens over the adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism, what a terrible loss this has been for the opposition. I have made it clear which “side” I am on. The antisemitism within the Labour movement is now personal, though carried out in the name of the political. It is woven into a 70s anti-colonialist world view, so was perhaps unavoidable given the leadership. But leadership is also about compromise. Where there should have been leadership there has been a vacuum. Could none of these personal friends of Tony Benn call off the hounding of his granddaughter, Emily Benn, for instance? All of this nastiness is visible now. What has remained invisible for months is any reworking of some of the good ideas in the manifesto. | Whatever happens over the adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism, what a terrible loss this has been for the opposition. I have made it clear which “side” I am on. The antisemitism within the Labour movement is now personal, though carried out in the name of the political. It is woven into a 70s anti-colonialist world view, so was perhaps unavoidable given the leadership. But leadership is also about compromise. Where there should have been leadership there has been a vacuum. Could none of these personal friends of Tony Benn call off the hounding of his granddaughter, Emily Benn, for instance? All of this nastiness is visible now. What has remained invisible for months is any reworking of some of the good ideas in the manifesto. |
| What excited people about Jeremy Corbyn was that he was offering an alternative economic model, the possibility of real change. Now there is Brexit stasis reflected in the stuckness in the polls. The day-to-day business of policymaking, the practical imagining of a different future, and communicating that to those who don’t usually vote Labour? Where is that? Instead there have been the denouncements and ritual disembowelling of Corbyn heretics by Twitter mobs. Much of this must be completely mystifying to many in the party. | What excited people about Jeremy Corbyn was that he was offering an alternative economic model, the possibility of real change. Now there is Brexit stasis reflected in the stuckness in the polls. The day-to-day business of policymaking, the practical imagining of a different future, and communicating that to those who don’t usually vote Labour? Where is that? Instead there have been the denouncements and ritual disembowelling of Corbyn heretics by Twitter mobs. Much of this must be completely mystifying to many in the party. |
| What seems to have been abandoned is any idea that politics is about persuading people rather than simply hammering them into submission. To get into power and to do anything for any one involves talking to those who have doubts, who disagree, who are half way there. Coaxing folk into thinking you would be a safe pair of hands is, I grant you, not as exciting as the politics of revolution. It is a bit dull. Dull enough to make Gordon Brown riding to the rescue seem exciting. This summer has been one of underlying malice giving way to inertia. A sad and lost time. | What seems to have been abandoned is any idea that politics is about persuading people rather than simply hammering them into submission. To get into power and to do anything for any one involves talking to those who have doubts, who disagree, who are half way there. Coaxing folk into thinking you would be a safe pair of hands is, I grant you, not as exciting as the politics of revolution. It is a bit dull. Dull enough to make Gordon Brown riding to the rescue seem exciting. This summer has been one of underlying malice giving way to inertia. A sad and lost time. |
| Theresa dances as well as she governs – encore! | Theresa dances as well as she governs – encore! |
| If I was a Tory guru (I expect the phone call any day now), I would currently be crafting the stage for Theresa May’s conference speech. There would be music and movement and lots of things breaking. After last year’s effort – epic coughing while the set fell apart – and her newfound love of unabashed home counties twerking, I would count on the public quite loving her awkwardness. It really is her only asset. Everyone is plotting against her, she is pathologically devoid of warmth, but when things go wrong this is as close as she comes to human, as she ploughs on regardless, dancing as well as she governs. Let’s see some more moves. | If I was a Tory guru (I expect the phone call any day now), I would currently be crafting the stage for Theresa May’s conference speech. There would be music and movement and lots of things breaking. After last year’s effort – epic coughing while the set fell apart – and her newfound love of unabashed home counties twerking, I would count on the public quite loving her awkwardness. It really is her only asset. Everyone is plotting against her, she is pathologically devoid of warmth, but when things go wrong this is as close as she comes to human, as she ploughs on regardless, dancing as well as she governs. Let’s see some more moves. |
| Frida Kahlo | Frida Kahlo |
| Opinion | Opinion |
| V&A | V&A |
| Museums | Museums |
| Theresa May | Theresa May |
| Jeremy Corbyn | Jeremy Corbyn |
| Gordon Brown | Gordon Brown |
| Antisemitism | Antisemitism |
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