Frida in Philly

On Saturday, I took an early morning bus to Philly, bounded up the same steps that Rocky Balboa did in 1976 and waited in line for 45 minutes (despite having pre-paid tickets) wringing my hands in the lobby of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Why all this drama on Saturday morning, you ask? Well, this was the last weekend of the Frida Kahlo exhibit in Philadelphia. Frida is moving on to San Fran in the fall and I'd have hated to miss her when she was so close to home.

Standing in line, the exhibit maitre'd told me that the exhibit was wonderful. "I won't give it away, but you're going to love it," he said. "There are a lot of photographs, I'm not going to tell you anything else." He smirked a knowing smirk and went off to corral another group of Frida lovers into an orderly line. Oh boy, was he right.

The exhibit was wonderful and I saw some of my favorite Frida works, as well as a ton of never-before-released family photos with Frida looking about as fierce as you can imagine. Once I'd become accustomed to the crowd, surprisingly enough, it was a very intimate experience.

The most interesting moment happened when I left the exhibit and wandered into other parts of the museum. It was almost impossible to appreciate the sometime coldness of contemporary and modern art after having been witness to art that was so personal. Dramatic and traumatic at times, but always personal and real. It was hard to relate to Cubism and Dada after that (and you all know how much I love the Dadaists and their funkiness).

It reminded me that intellectual art is always interesting and often beautiful, but visceral art can do something that the intellectual kind: reveal something true and human. That is Frida's legacy.

All in all, a Saturday very well spent.