Diego Rivera House & Casa Azul

Staight outta my superduperdarksecretinterestingjuicyjournal.

December 12, 2009
Loaded up with Anuar and his family to take a trip to the Diego Rivera house yesterday in DF. We pulled in to a super-duper fancy pants part of town, a little puzzling due to the fact that Frida and Diego were hard core socialists.The house is a very modern style with a line of cacti that served as a private fence. The house is red and very geometric minus the very Guggenheim-ish spiral staircase. There is a walking bridge on the roof attached NOT to THE casa azul, but another blue house (Diego's living quarters. Red house is the mainly studio space.) I paid 30 pesos to be able to take photos, which was well worth it. The museum had a series of black and white photos of Diego and Frida, most of which I had seen online or in a book at some point. But a lot were the originals, making them a little more interesting.I was more concerned with the space, and the fact that Diego and Frida had lived together in it. Diego's studio is something out of this world. A MASSIVE space – two stories of open, warm, natural lighting with huge paper-mache puppet/demon creatures that he and Frida collected.They both definitely had a unique collection of skeletons and fantastic creatures. All of his paints, pastels and general art supplies were sitting out in the studio and I could NOT wrap my mind around the fact that I was standing in a room where such brilliance was conceived and executed. [SHIVERS]Diego had a little bedroom attached to his studio. I imagined him painting to the wee hours of the morning – drinking, smoking, then crashing, dazed in a creative coma. But besides his little night lamp, wallet and keys, what struck me about the bedroom was the little white, pillow that said, "mi cariño." (An endearing, my dear, or my love.) Later at Casa Azul, on Frida's bed I saw the same pillow, both hand-sewn by Frida herself.I could have spent a week walking around in that place, soaking up the magic that very much still permeates throughout.

Upstairs in the the living quarters, (blue house) there was a tiny room on the right hand side with immaculate lighting. I walked in and immediately felt chills – a certain energy was buzzing inside of me. I knew Frida had stood in the same corner. Frida's bathroom mirror!What interesting characters indeed, Frida and Diego. One of my favorite parts of their homes was exploring their individual book collections. At Diego's house, a lot of history, reference and leftist material; but at the same time some novels and a few how-to books that helped to humanize such a super-human character. (Which is so hard to do with Frida-marketing and the basic exploitation of their intimate story.) Here I'm standing where the roofs connect.Next on to Casa Azul. Also in Coyoacán, a barrio in DF. Of course, Casa Azul was electric blue, and while waiting in line, I felt wedged between a massive city and this beautifully-created jungle-like landscape.
Massive trees, vines and pre-Colombian sculptures inhabited the space, so the idea we were in the middle of Mexico City seemed fabricated.Leaves were falling off of trees, there were tiny ponds everywhere. The garden was MASSIVE, much larger than I remember from the movie, Frida, and much larger than I ever imagined. This woman's energy was immensely present in everything she touched– and the importance of art and creation as an individual was very clearly showcased.But again, I had this huge dilemma: The enormous collection of Diego and Frida work coupled with the fact that I was standing in a space that they each had created. Not to mention spent many years of her their lives there! I started thinking about this paper that I wrote in college about Frank Lloyd Wright's Guggenheim Museum, and the argument that his construction was so powerful, so moving and so distracting, one could only focus on the grandeur of his work, rather than focus in on the (in comparison, measly) painting or sculpture being displayed.

The next time I go back to Casa Azul, I'll need a day for each aspect (created art vs. created space.) Unfortunately this time, I was also on a time budget and with 5 other people. And although I fell in love with Anuar's family and asked them to adopt me, I think the next time I return to Frida's house, I'll have to be alone.Anyway, to this date, I had only seen one of Frida's pieces, a still life of fruit in a Modern Art Museum in Dallas. I was talking to Tim on the phone, and just so happen to look up and see it all alone on the wall. The chills stunned my body to a halt, I didn't speak for a moment, and then said, "I have to call you back." I then hung up the phone and burst into tears. I could feel energy emanating out of her work. So to be in HER HOUSE, with a huge collection of of HER PAINTINGS was just as much as a physical experience for me as emotional.Each time I passed one of her original paintings; some of which were, the family portrait, the portrait of her father, viva la vida with watermelons, a collection of female portraits, and one drawing that was completely new to me; I experienced a whole new round of chills, of complete aw. Unfortunately for me, I couldn't take photos inside her house.
The one I had never seen before, I'm slightly irritated at myself for not writing down the name, was called something like, "2 fridas, 2 percepciones." It was a simple graphite drawing, about 8.5 x 11 and it was a sketch of Frida's skeleton, her casts becoming a part of her weak and brittle bones. There were very minimal suggestions on the outside of the skeleton of a beautiful pre-Columbian dress and her infamous accessories, like you would see cloth outlined in an xray. It was two perceptions molded as one, what's perceived on the outside and what actually existed underneath. It felt very vulnerable to me, very intimate. It was so small, yet so incredibly powerful, and completely new. [LOVE]
Again, the dilemma brought me back to reality, and I had to take in the presence of her created space. Her studio had abundant natural lighting, big windows and a whole massive wall of books. It also looked over the courtyard and was so freakin' obvious why she would choose this as a space to create. She had a lot of reference and Mexican history books like Diego and I could have spent a week evaluating her collection. I also wondered if her books were tagged and marked-up like I do when I read... For some reason, I say yes! I adored her collection – the novels, travel books, anatomy, history and how-to. She seemed to have been very well-rounded woman. Spending time in her space, I can only imagine her powerful presence as a living, breathing soul. I hope to find out in the next life. Until then...