Dundee Art Adventure

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This podcast complements the YouTube series, and expands on the book, by the same name.

Speaker 1: So I am here
today with Susie and Somalia.

We are discussing our
respective relationships with

incredible painter Fredda Kalo.

Each of us discovered that we have
a very distinctive relationship,

either from seeing the work or seeing
the work and visiting the place.

It was generated in my case, I probably
have the most distant, but no less, um,

inspired relationship with Fredda Kawell.

So I'm really, I just want to hear
about your experiences actually

going to see the work and seeing.

Where she lived and worked.

So you've already been
having a conversation.

I wish I'd recorded it already, but
maybe I'll just, maybe you can just

pick up where you left off or you, you
can sort of start at the beginning.

I am seeing, yeah, I know you,
you visited the blue house in

2019 . Last last month, yeah.

Art Institute of Chicago,
which is incredible.

So it's very fresh for you just
now and you've had a few years

processing what you saw there.

I

Speaker 2: think what's the wonderful
thing about her is the way she has

survived, not just in her paintings,
but that her energy still lives with

us and anyone who it connects with
her through her art, her story, her

pain, her suffering, her incredible
talent seems to just still, it's

as if she's still living through
our fingertips, through our hearts,

through our minds, through our voices.

And I just wonder, how is it that
an artist can have such incredible.

Resonance with so many different people
around the world, but also like how does

she survive in through so many different
voices of artistic, , conversation.

So like, I really am interested in
talking to you actually Su about

like being in her place of work.

I mean, I just saw her art and
I've always been inspired by her

and I'll talk about that in a bit.

But I'd love to know what is
actually to be on the ground where

she was and created and lived.

Do you know, I think first of all, it's
so lovely that in a very spontaneous,

kind of short stretch of dialogue, we all
came to that kind of resonance of Frida.

We all have a relationship with her of
sorts, and it was 2019, and I should

probably preface this by saying I
went to Mexico, not necessarily to

go to the blue house, but I went to
swim because I'm, I am a swimmer, an

artist, but I swim a lot and I tend to.

Love to pre pandemic, see
the world through the water.

And I had gone specifically to an
environment in Mexico that we flew into

Mexico City and I was with a friend
that wasn't an artist, but I had said

to her after this week of swimming, um.

I would love to be able to go to the blue
house, and she knew nothing about Frida,

and that in itself is a very interesting
way of seeing the work through somebody

who's completely new to Frida's work.

But my recollection, vivid recollection
of arriving at the Blue House was that

there were hordes of people waiting.

It was this full on anticipation
of arriving at this, you know,

intense, bright blue, dominant.

A place of, it sort of felt like a
place of worship people were trying

to arrive and glean entry into.

But because I am a maker and I, and,
and it sounds like I'm very interested

in sort of animism, but I have a strong
sense that objects and things carry

energy and embody memories and stories,
and I found that being in that space was.

On lots of different levels.

It was very visceral.

There was an exhibition that I first
went to of a lot of the clothing that

she wore when she was alive in the
aftermath of her accident, when she

was a teenager on the bus where she
was skewered, um, through her insides,

I think through her ovaries and womb.

And so there were lots of layers of
suffering that felt like they were

being relived by looking at these.

What may have been presented as sort of
like almost fashion items because she

influenced so much of the FA continues
to influence so many fashion houses.

Um, but actually when you go, when
I went into, and I don't wanna say

too much 'cause I know you want to
still go, but going into the space

that she occupied and lived in with
Diego was both kind of haunting but

also really revitalizing, like you
were talking about earlier, that the.

Re sort of almost like
reliving and reanimating and

revisiting the, the, this world.

Although she's not here in this
physical world, she is absolutely

present everywhere in the house and
in the gardens and in the environment.

And yeah, it's somewhere
that has hugely affected me.

I know that was pre pandemic and
I've read a lot about her, her

backstory, but actually being in situ.

Gave me the opportunity to rethink
through her story, through the objects,

through the paintings, the works,
the materials that she worked with.

Yeah.

And I think that's so interesting
'cause as all those materials that then

ultimately created her artwork, which you
know, has moved around the world and just

being in Chicago just a few weeks ago and
then seeing this like, you know, just.

Serendipitous.

I was thinking about Frida just a
few weeks before that, and I didn't

realize that her, this exhibit was
happening at the Art Institute.

I go to Chicago quite often, so I
was quite surprised when it was on,

and I said, there is just nothing.

There's nothing that's gonna
stop me from seeing this.

But what really incredibly, was really
incredible about that entire experience

was how close I could get to her artwork,
because it wasn't barriered in any way.

So I was literally as close as we.

Standing right now.

I went up to it like even closer and,
um, I looked at her handwriting and

the, you know, the textures of the paint
and the vibrancy of it, but then also

felt the presence of her painting it.

You know, I actually, you're talking
about visceral and I'm talking about the

visceral experience of not even being
in the place of her creation, but being

next to her creation and being able to.

Feel her there, which is really incredible
because there's been so many artists

in the world and there's some wonderful
paintings, but there is something really

special and magical about Frida that can
allow that kind of transportive feeling.

When you're near her artwork, near
her place of living and creating

and like, I'm quite interested in
knowing about your experience, Adam.

Like, you know, you were, we, you were,
we were talking about cards and, you

know, you were talking about those
inspiring women and that, and then your

connection to Frida and how she's inspired
you as, as someone who is included

in art and does look at it that way.

Yeah.

Thanks.

So I was quite touched when you
mentioned, uh, Susie, about swelling.

And I thought about why,
because I do that, I do that.

I love that.

I just spent the last six days
in Belfast and I was barely

out of the water, to be honest.

And I thought about, you know,
the famous through the K work.

Water.

Yeah.

The water the water gave me.

Mm-hmm.

And, and also just over and above
that, the intensity of what it means

to go into the zoo, especially.

When you lived in Scotland?

Yes.

What it means to go in the scene
and think about that relationship

elementally and intensity of it, and
that desire for feeling something more.

And I think I studied painting.

Mm-hmm.

That was originally what I studied and
I think about the ways that I know I

was always interested in Vida Carlo
and then obviously she was on my radar.

And my friend, I remember when she
went to New York, brought me back

these beautiful enamel cups and
one was Friedan, one was Diego.

And I used to always talk about at the
time, like how that was the ideal set up

for like living with a partner, that you'd
have a bridge between your two houses.

Yeah.

So I used to always talk about that,
but there was something, when I was

listening to you speak, I thought, why?

Why wasn't, why wasn't her work
more of a feature in my research

and I think it scared me.

Mm-hmm.

I think it made me uncomfortable.

And I think that's the power of the work.

And I think that's the power of an
artist who is unapologetically bold

and, and really not trying to get
away from or evading the pain of

her own trauma, the pain of her, her
experience of, of, of chronic pain.

And that is because we
are, we do receive it and.

Through fashion houses,
through merchandise.

And I love that because some people might
think that's, you know, disrespectful, but

it's just amazing that an artist, you can
see Frida Carol's face as an illustration.

There's children's books about Frida.

She's everywhere.

But it, it can sometimes, for
me, it, it made me not understand

why the work itself, why I still
couldn't quite approach it.

I think I wasn't ready yet.

I think I'm only ready now after living
more of life to be able to actually, I.

Luke and, and to engage with
this really just completely

penetrating kind of terrifying work.

It's, it's frightening.

Yeah.

It's frightening to, you know, to
really, I get engulfed in that work.

'cause it's really easy to suck you
in because there's so many layers to.

Humanity within that.

Right.

And even to, like you and I were talking
about belonging and I think that she felt

very, she was very patriotically Mexican.

And I think for me as being somebody
from a place that I've always,

like, I've born in Pakistan, but I
still feel like, I don't feel like I

belong to that land for many reasons.

Uh, because of partition,
because of all of that.

And I feel that she just stood
up for what she, she actually.

Felt like she was tethered to the land.

And to feel that kind of belonging,
you know, you come from a place

of grounding, but yet your
life is completely ungrounded.

And how have you re-grounded yourself
through, you know, the pigments and the

colors and the way of telling your story?

And you know, like you said, very openly.

Talking about the suffering and
pain, which is, you know, not an

easy thing to do, and it's being
comfortable with who you are.

That is what inspires us still, I
think, and I, I do reflect on the

reality of during her lifetime, she
certainly didn't have the presence

with her work that she now does.

And I can't help but think that,
you know, Diego was a very, very

controlling, um, and you know, in
terms of their dynamic, it's very

evident now that she was suffocated.

And, but in a way that that makes
the work even more, um, powerful.

But the brutality within which she
honestly conveys aspects of being human.

Let alone the trauma that she traumas
that she experienced during her time.

I think there are many moments where
people will choose perhaps not to go to

her work because of their own suffering.

Mm-hmm.

And I remember, I, I had be, I
had divorced my, I'm a divorcee

and, and I spent many years
in a quite a raw state of.

Emotion connected to betrayal
and all human, you know,

aspects of what we experience.

But it, it was, it was a really important,
it was like a way that she allowed me

to kind of go to a deeper level of my
own pain and realized it almost sort

of diluted a bit of my pain because I
realized it's just about being human.

It's about like having some porosity.

Um, I think you're so right about
that because I'm similar and I got

divorced and I think for many years
I used to look at Frida's work

from afar and be very intimidated
by even trying to understand it.

And now I look at it and I actually
feel like I understand a bit of it.

Yeah.

Not really everything, but I
understand pain and I understand how

you can be comfortable with pain.

Yeah.

In a way that something inside
you is allowing your pain to find

a voice and that is ultimately
is allowing your pain to be.

Have a voice, have space so that
there's something deeper within you

that needs to come out with that pain.

And it's like using pain as a channel,
as a, almost like a, you know,

a conduit to like bigger things.

Uh, and I think that's
what her works does.

And I think that under the surface of all
the pain and all the cannabis, I think

that's what it's saying, that pain is
only superficial and is only like surface

to what it can actually conjure up.

And I think that's beautiful.

Lovely.

Great.

I what there, this needs to go out.

It's so exciting.

Okay.

So that was a lovely conversation.

That was such a nice conversation, Frieda.

Thank you Frieda.

Thank you.

Yeah, thank you Frieda.

Okay.

And stop.