playing with the body on canvas/screen
"Two Fridas"
Again I'm thinking about the body, most recently while at the Walker checking out the Frida Kahlo exhibit that just passed through. What most caught my eye was the painting The Two Frida's and how it dipicts a multiplicity of identities. While I'm not an art historian, the painting seems to acknowledge that we present and live out multiple selves and that these selves are interconnected in a visceral way--hence the arteries dripping blood on her dress. I know that specifically this blood refers to her tumultuous relationship with d. rivera, but I'm still interested in how she is performing these different bodies. Some of her other paintings take up questions of the body and its representation as well. I wonder how Kahlo's play with the body on canvas and steel as she liked to do, relates to how so many of us play with our bodies on line--whether it be in Second Life, designing our avatars our on our blogs building textual bodies?
