自拍之母弗裏達卡羅 經久不息的誘惑者
She was a genius before she was a refrigerator magnet, an ace manipulator of society and media nearly a century before social media came into existence. Born in 1907, dead at 47, Frida Kahlo achieved celebrity even in her brief lifetime that extended far beyond Mexico’s borders, although nothing like the cult status that would eventually make her the mother of the selfie, her indelible image recognizable everywhere.
早在社交媒體出現之前，她就已經是操縱社會與媒體的高手，有她肖像的冰箱磁貼走進千家萬戶，但她首先是一位藝術天才。弗裏達·卡羅(Frida Kahlo)生於1907年，去世時年僅47歲，在短短一生中，她的名氣越過了墨西哥邊境，雖然真實的她和那個受到小衆崇拜、最後令她成爲自拍之母的身份並無相似之處，但她那不可磨滅的肖像卻無處不在。
In a welcome though unexpected convergence, an array of new books and exhibitions about Kahlo have suddenly appeared this spring, adding insight and depth to our understanding of a woman who would seem among the most overexposed artistic figures of all time.
今年春天，一大堆關於卡羅的新書和展覽突然冒了出來，令人欣喜而又頗爲意外，這些書籍和展覽有助於我們更深入地瞭解這個女人，這個藝術史上遭到曝光最多的藝術人物之一。
While it seems clear that artists like Tracey Emin have fallen under the influence of her audacious self-disclosures; that designers — like Riccardo Tisci of Givenchy and Jean Paul Gaultier — have drawn inspiration from her style; and that entertainers like Lady Gaga and Beyoncé shrewdly adapted the lessons pioneered by a publicity-friendly solipsist who anticipated the Instagram era by many decades, Kahlo remains in some ways an enigma.
翠西·艾敏(Tracey Emin)這類藝術家都深受她的影響，尤其是大膽自我暴露的這一面；讓·保羅·高緹耶(Jean Paul Gaultier)和紀梵希的裏卡多·堤西(Riccardo Tisci)等設計師從她的風格中汲取靈感；Lady Gaga和碧昂斯(Beyoncé)之類的藝人聰明地沿着她在Instagram出現幾十年前便已開創的道路，塑造出對公衆友好的唯我主義者形象……然而，卡羅在某些方面仍然是一個謎。In “Mirror, Mirror,” a portrait-survey that opens this month at Throckmorton Fine Art in Manhattan, Kahlo is revealed to have been an image wizard as canny as her spiritual descendant, Madonna.
《鏡子，鏡子》(Mirror Mirror)肖像展將於本月在曼哈頓的斯洛克莫頓美術館開幕，將卡羅呈現爲一個塑造形象的魔法師，同她的精神後裔麥當娜(Madonna)一樣狡黠多變。“Frida did not miss an opportunity to be photographed by anyone and everyone,” said Norberto Rivera, the photography director at the gallery. “She created this image to hide the pain,” he added, referring to the lifelong aftereffects of severe injuries Kahlo suffered in a streetcar accident when she was 18. Through self-portraits that unsparingly depict her physical travails and that make frank allusion to a tumultuous emotional life, Kahlo inadvertently vaulted herself into that strange constellation of bright-burning, ill-fated stars, alongside James Dean and Marilyn Monroe.
“弗裏達不放過任何讓人給她拍照的機會，”美術館的攝影部主任諾波託·里維拉(Norberto Rivera)說，“她籍着塑造這樣的形象來掩藏痛苦。”18歲那年，卡羅因街車事故導致重傷，此後終生受其後遺症影響。她在自畫像中毫無保留地描繪身體上的痛苦，坦率地暗示充滿動盪的情感生活，漫不經心地令自己上升到那個由熾烈燃燒、命運多舛的星辰組成的奇異星座，其中包括詹姆斯·迪恩(James Dean)和瑪麗蓮·夢露(Marilyn Monroe)等人。So extensive is Frida Kahlo’s fame it’s difficult now to credit the fact that, at an auction of Latin American art held by Sotheby’s in May 1985, a painting depicting the artist as a hunted deer pierced by arrows, which was offered as the star lot, failed to sell. A decade later, another Kahlo painting was featured on a cover of a Sotheby’s catalog. This portrait, of the artist with a parrot and a monkey, was hammered down quickly for more than $3 million, at the time a worldwide record for a Latin American artist. Five years later, a 1929 Kahlo self-portrait sold to an Argentine collector for $5.1 million.
弗裏達·卡羅的名氣太廣，1985年5月，在蘇富比的一場拉丁美洲藝術拍賣會上，她的一幅自畫像被作爲明星拍品，圖中她把自己描繪爲全身中箭的鹿，但這幅畫最終沒有拍出去，現在想來實在不可思議。十年後，另一幅卡羅的自畫像出現在蘇富比的拍賣目錄封面上。畫中她身邊有鸚鵡和猴子，這幅畫很快以300多萬美元的價格拍出，在當時創下了拉丁美洲藝術家的世界紀錄。五年後，卡羅1929年的一幅自畫像被一位阿根廷收藏家以510萬美元買下。In under two decades, aided by a well-regarded biography and a soapy biopic, Kahlo had undergone transformation from a compelling cult figure to a universally recognized symbol of artistic triumph and feminist struggle. Somehow along the way she also became a centerpiece of a kitsch marketing bonanza. The “Fridamania” that elevated Kahlo to near-mythic dimensions also transformed her — brooding gaze, elaborate Tehuana coiffures, signature mono-brow — into an image emblazoned on sneakers, T-shirts, tote bags, coasters, cosmetics, even tequila and beer.
20年來，由於一本備受好評的傳記，以及一部肥皂劇式的傳記電影，卡羅從一個迷人的小衆形象變成了受到普遍認可的符號，象徵着藝術的勝利與女性主義的鬥爭。在這個過程中，她也爲刻奇的大衆市場提供了豐盛的資源。這股“弗裏達狂熱”(Fridamania)將卡羅提升到一個接近神話的地步，她的形象——沉思般的目光、精心梳起的特旺納髮型、標誌性的一字眉——出現在帆布鞋、T恤衫、手提包、杯墊、裝飾品上，甚至是龍舌蘭酒和啤酒商標上。“I remember buying as a gift Frida Kahlo Converse sneakers at 10 Corso Como,” said Robert Burke, a luxury consultant, referring to the high-end Milanese retailer. “Though that was fun and good, there’s only a certain amount of times an image can be used before it starts to fatigue and degrade.”
“我記得在10 Corso Como買過一雙弗裏達·卡羅的匡威帆布鞋送人，”奢侈品顧問羅伯特·伯克(Robert Burke)說，10 Corso Como是米蘭一家高端精品店。“儘管它很有趣，很漂亮，但是使用任何一種形象都是有特定時限的，之後它就會漸漸疲軟、掉價。”Yet counter to Mr. Burke’s assertion, Frida Kahlo suddenly seems anything but exhausted as a subject.
然而和伯克的看法正相反，弗裏達·卡羅突然再度走紅，根本沒有出現令人產生審美疲勞的跡象。“Fridamania shows no signs of relenting,” said Graham W. J. Beal, the director of the Detroit Institute of Arts and curator of “Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo in Detroit,” which shrewdly examines Rivera and Kahlo’s pivotal though largely forgotten sojourn in the Motor City, where Rivera had been commissioned to paint the labor mural “Detroit Industry.” At the NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale in Florida, “Kahlo, Rivera and Mexican Modern Art” revisits the relationship between these protean artists, locating them equally and squarely at the center of Mexican modernism.
“弗裏達狂熱完全沒有平息下去的跡象，”格雷厄姆·W·J·比爾(Graham W. J. Beal)說，他是底特律藝術學院的院長，策展了“迭戈·里維拉與弗裏達·卡羅在底特律”(Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo in Detroit)。當年里維拉曾接受任務，在這座汽車城創作關於勞工的壁畫《底特律工業》(Detroit Industry)，他與卡羅在底特律居留的這段時間非常重要，但卻往往被人們忽略，此次的展覽極具眼光地回顧了那個時期。此外，在佛羅里達的勞德代爾堡NSU藝術館，“卡羅、里維拉與墨西哥現代藝術”展覽回顧了這些變化多端的藝術家們之間的關係，公正平等地將他們置於墨西哥現代主義的中心。Fine catalogs accompanying each exhibition add to an ever-expanding Kahlo library, and yet in certain ways it is the newly published “Frida Kahlo: The Gisèle Freund Photographs,” that offers the most intimate insights into her life and working process. Its 100 rare images document a friendship that the Magnum photographer conducted with the couple in the last years before Kahlo’s death; both Kahlo and Rivera shine forth from these domestic images.
兩個展覽都有精美的展品目錄，爲持續擴大的與卡羅相關書籍增添了新的成員。另外，新出版的《弗裏達·卡羅：吉塞勒·弗洛因德攝影作品》(Frida Kahlo: The Gisèle Freund Photographs)是對她的生活與工作極爲親密的觀察，內含100幅罕見的照片，記錄了弗洛因德這位瑪格南攝影師在卡羅去世前幾年與這對夫妻結下的友情，卡羅與里維拉在這些家庭照上顯得熠熠生輝。Complementing the revelations of the Freund book is “Frida Kahlo: Art, Garden, Life,” opening May 16 at the New York Botanical Garden. For this surprising exhibition, the Tony Award-winning stage designer Scott Pask traveled to Mexico City to immerse himself in the world of Kahlo and Rivera, returning to recreate in the leafy Bronx the grounds of their home, La Casa Azul.
“弗裏達·卡羅：藝術、花園、生活”展覽爲弗洛因德的書提供了極好的補充，它將於5月16日在紐約植物園開幕。 託尼獎得主，舞臺設計師斯科特·帕斯克爲布展特意去了墨西哥城，將自己浸淫在卡羅與里維拉的世界之中，回來便在林木茂密的紐約布朗克斯復現了他們的居所“藍房子”(La Casa Azul)，令展覽更加引人入勝。A singular dwelling built by Kahlo’s father in what were then the outskirts of Mexico City, Casa Azul became the anchor of Kahlo’s and Rivera’s married lives. They filled it with their astounding collections of ex votos, folk art and important Mesoamerican sculpture, and also with fellow Communist Party members, varied lovers, artist friends and a menagerie including parrots, monkeys and a pack of hairless dogs called xoloitzcuintli.
藍房子是卡羅的父親建造的一座獨棟房屋，位於墨西哥城郊外，卡羅與里維拉婚後主要住在那裏。房子里布滿兩人驚人的藏品，包括許願物、民間藝術和重要的中美洲雕塑。他們的共產黨同志、換來換去的情人、藝術家朋友們也常常住在那裏，兩人還養了一大堆動物，諸如鸚鵡、猴子以及一大羣墨西哥無毛犬。“There are a lot of people that have Frida refrigerator magnets that have never seen a Frida painting,” Mr. Pask said. “When you see the house and the beautiful emotive space of the garden, you understand that the art, the love and the life are so intertwined.”
“很多人都有弗裏達的冰箱貼，但他們從沒看過弗裏達的畫，”帕斯克說。“當你看到那棟房子，以及它那充滿美妙情感的花園，你會理解她的藝術、生活與愛交織在一起，密不可分。”His rendition of a volcanic stone pyramid Rivera constructed in the garden to display his collection of pre-Columbian artifacts is Mr. Pask’s most theatrical gesture. But his more subtle accomplishment may be the evocation of “this atmosphere Frida surrounded herself with, incorporating the botanical influence of the markets of Mexico, her gardens, the fruits and plants and animals she lived with into the prism of her work.”
里維拉在那座花園裏用一塊金字塔狀的火山岩展示哥倫布發現美洲之前的美洲藝術品，帕斯克對之進行了復現，堪稱最爲戲劇化的手法。但帕斯克最爲美妙的成就還要算是重新營造出了“弗裏達在自己身邊創造出的氛圍，結合了墨西哥市場上的植物，她身邊的花園、果實、植物與動物都被反映在她的作品之中”。The results are so singular it is little wonder Kahlo remains a figure of fascination.
她的作品如此奇異，沒有人會懷疑，她仍然是個極度迷人的人物。“Clearly, she has become this major icon,” said Bonnie Clearwater, the director of the NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale.
“顯然，她後來成了大衆偶像，” 勞德代爾堡NSU藝術館館長邦尼·克萊爾沃特(Bonnie Clearwater)說。Her point is underscored by the strangely compelling 2013 book by the Japanese photographer Miyako Ishiuchi documenting Kahlo’s wardrobe and belongings, images of which later found their way into the hip Berlin glossy O32c. (A fetishistic regard for objects that touched Kahlo’s body is not unique to Ms. Ishiuchi; on loan to the Throckmorton Fine Art show will be one of the orthopedic corsets illness required Kahlo to wear, “authenticated” in the manner of saintly relics and decorated with a hammer and sickle by her.)
2013年，日本攝影師石內都的影集進一步證明了她的說法，這部影集拍攝的都是卡羅的衣物和其他物品，其中的照片後來還曾在柏林時尚的銅版紙雜誌《O32c》上刊出。不是隻有石內都一人對卡羅的貼身物品懷有戀物癖式的喜愛，斯洛克莫頓美術館的展覽中也有一件卡羅因病才穿在身上的整形胸衣，像聖人遺物一樣“被鑑定爲真品”，她還用錘子和鐮刀裝飾它。Unlike Che Guevara, who when he became a T-shirt and a poster was scarcely identifiable as “the leader of the Cuban revolution,” wrote Gérard de Cortanze, Kahlo’s French biographer, in an email, “Frida Kahlo remains Frida Kahlo.” If his gnomic remark is not supportable in any real biographical sense, there is little doubt Kahlo continues to exist as a potent figure of myth.
卡羅的法語傳記作者雷哈爾·德·科爾坦茲(Gérard de Cortanze)在接受電子郵件採訪時寫道，切·格瓦拉(Che Guevara)的頭像剛一開始出現在T恤衫和海報上，馬上就被人們等同爲“古巴革命的領袖”，但是和他不同，“弗裏達·卡羅就是弗裏達·卡羅”。這句箴言般的評論或許無法在真實的傳記中得到體現，但毫無疑問，卡羅仍然是一個極具說服力的神祕人物。“I’m constantly fascinated by the numbers of teenagers who buy my books about Frida,” Mr. de Cortanze wrote, referring to “The Lovers of Coyoacán,” a novel fictionalizing Kahlo’s brief though torrid affair with Leon Trotsky. “It’s not the creator of the Red Army that interests young readers. It’s what Frida thinks and lives, how she drinks, makes love, cooks for friends, swears like a trooper.”
“有很多十幾歲的孩子會買我那些關於弗裏達的書籍，這常常令我感到驚訝，”德·科爾坦茲寫道，他指的是自己的小說《科約阿坎戀人》(The Lovers of Coyoacán)，這本書用小說的方式敘述了卡羅與列夫·托洛茨基(Leon Trotsky)短暫而激烈的戀情。“吸引年輕讀者的不是蘇聯紅軍的創始人，而是弗裏達的思考與生活、她怎樣喝酒、做愛、給朋友們做飯，像士兵一樣咒罵。”For those readers, he said, Kahlo is “a sister, a friend, a woman ceaselessly in search of her autonomy.”
他說，對於這些年輕讀者們來說，卡羅就像“一個姊姊、一個朋友、以及一個不懈追求自由的女人”。In the telling of Ms. Clearwater, the artist Julian Schnabel not long ago traveled to Fort Lauderdale to dedicate a painting, a gift he made to the institution.
克萊爾沃特說，藝術家朱利安·施納貝爾(Julian Schnabel)不久前曾經來到勞德代爾堡藝術館捐獻了一幅油畫，這是他特意爲該館創作的禮物。“All Julian kept saying was he couldn’t wait to see the Kahlo,” Ms. Clearwater said. “Who in the world would have thought very macho Julian Schnabel had been influenced by her?”
“朱利安一直說，他簡直等不及要看卡羅的展覽，”克萊爾沃特說。“誰能想到那麼大男子氣的朱利安·施納貝爾也受她的影響呢？”Yet, as it happens, the Brooklyn-born Mr. Schnabel also spent part of his youth in Brownsville, Tex.; from there in the ’60s he made a pilgrimage to Mexico City to visit the Museo Frida Kahlo, located inside her birthplace at La Casa Azul.
是的，出生在布魯克林的施納貝爾年輕時曾在得克薩斯州的布朗斯維爾住過；60年代的時候，他曾經從那裏出發到墨西哥朝聖，參觀設立在藍房子裏的弗裏達·卡羅博物館，卡羅就是在那棟房子裏出生的。“He told me he was blown away by the emotional side” of Kahlo’s work, by her ability to transmit emotion through her work, Ms. Clearwater said.
克萊爾沃特說，“他告訴我，（卡羅的作品中）情感的一面”，乃至她通過作品表達情感的方式都令他感到震撼。“If Julian had not said this to me, I would never have thought of him in those terms,” she added. “And yet, when you look at paintings like ‘Untitled (Goodbye Mike Kelley),’ you understand them as prayers to those you love and those who died.”
“如果朱利安不說，我從來不會站在這些角度上去想他，”克萊爾沃特補充道。“不過，看到《無名<告別邁克·凱利>》(Untitled [Goodbye Mike Kelley])這樣的作品，你就會明白，它們是爲所愛之人乃至去世的人們獻上的祈禱。”Like many of Kahlo’s spiritual descendants — who record the minutiae of their lives on social media in existential gestures that are, as much as anything, about the fact of their own occurrence — the artist was intent on leaving marks that testified to her existence.
卡羅的衆多精神後裔們常常在社交媒體上以存在主義的姿態記載生活中的細枝末節，寫下自己生活中的種種事件，卡羅本人也熱衷於爲自己的存在留下種種痕跡。“This continues to hit a nerve with people,” Ms. Clearwater explained. “The paintings are Kahlo’s way of saying: ‘This is how I thought. This is what I lived. Remember me.’ ”
“這些痕跡一直都能觸動人們的心絃，”克萊爾沃特說。“那些油畫就像是卡羅在說：‘這就是我的想法，這就是我的生活，記住我吧。’”
