Are you a Frida fan(atic)? (Also known as a "Fridamaniac" — check out this website for more links and details.)

Good news if you are a fan of Frida Kahlo and you're near Philly — which, hey, we're not, but what's a trip of 2975 (says Google Maps) or 2452 (says Great Circle Mapper) miles to a Fridamaniac?

The Philadelphia Museum of Art celebrates Frida Kahlo with a "centennial" exhibit. That is, Kahlo was born 100 (now 101) years ago, and Philly's going all out with Fridamania.

In The New York Times, Holland Cotter writes a pretty damn good article about the show. Cotter writes intelligently about Kahlo's biography and her art. But my favorite part is when Cotter writes this:

Like any cult figure she has detractors, who scoff at the meticulously calculated self-image in her art, at her opportunistic narcissism. Was she self-aggrandizing? Of course. As she said, she was her art. But her subjectivity was capacious and empathetic. It encompasses so much — politics, religions, sexualities, ethnicities — that it’s almost self-effacing. I would suggest that biographical detail is just the beginning for understanding Kahlo’s work. It is an art much bigger than the life that made it.

I would also suggest that accusations of megalomania derive partly from social biases. Picasso’s art is routinely viewed through the lens of biography, with groups of work said to be evidence of his emotional response to this woman or that, the active element being his genius. Few people seriously complain about this version of art as egomania. Picasso was expanding his creative territory. Kahlo didn’t know how to keep her place.

Unh hunh. Take that, sexist art historians.

And by the way, Kahlo and Diego Rivera's Casa Azul, now the Museo Frida Kahlo, is closer than Philadelphia to Eugene (2199 miles, says Great Circle Mapper). See you there!