Frida Kahlo. The Gaze as Identity

Ergo Expo is delighted to present “Frida Kahlo. The Gaze as Identity”, a photographic exhibition dedicated to the Mexican artist and the representation of her image.

Housed in the spaces of Palazzo Pepoli, home to the Museum of the History of Bologna, from 28 March to 27 September 2026 and curated by ONO arte, the exhibition presents 70 original photographs taken by leading photographers, including Edward Weston, Lucienne Bloch, Lola Álvarez Bravo, Julien Levy, Nickolas Muray, Gisèle Freund, Imogen Cunningham, Leo Matiz, Bernard Silberstein and Graciela Iturbide.

Artist, activist, woman, icon, Frida Kahlo has in recent years become a symbol, often stripped of meaning or into which, from time to time, the most diverse meanings have been poured. We might say that in Frida Kahlo our era has found a figure who is extraordinarily useful – if not essential – for reflecting on themes that concern us closely, such as identity, the body, pain and self-representation.

Although Kahlo never achieved full artistic success during her short life – and her art was only rediscovered from the mid-1980s onwards – today Frida Kahlo is the most highly valued female artist in the world. Even more significant, however, is the fact that it is Kahlo herself, as a person, who has assumed the role of a posthumous celebrity: numerous biographies have been written about her, films have been made, and her image – often stylised – is reproduced on countless merchandising products, to the point of becoming a true icon, in the literal sense of the word. In Mexico, moreover, she is the subject of a veneration that at times resembles that reserved for saints.

Moreover, Frida Kahlo herself, throughout her life, was always very conscious of and attentive to her own image. The extensive use of the self-portrait in her painting – which began after the accident that, when she was just eighteen, confined her to bed for over three months and marked her for life – bears witness to a constant exploration of the representation of the self. Even her exclusive use of traditional Mexican dress, in contrast to the fashion of the time, became an integral part of her identity and, subsequently, of her legend. Kahlo even went so far as to change her name and alter her year of birth, making it coincide with that of the Mexican Revolution.

Kahlo was also very familiar with photography. After her death, over 6,000 photographic prints were found amongst her belongings, starting with those taken by her father, the photographer Guillermo Kahlo, who was the first to portray her, introducing her to the potential of the medium as a form of expression. It is indeed in his photographs that the young Frida began to experiment with clothing, sometimes even dressing in men’s attire.

As she grew up, Kahlo never turned down an opportunity to be photographed, whether by friends, relatives or the artists she came into contact with. It is difficult to find anyone in the history of art portrayed as frequently as Frida Kahlo, especially considering that in those years photography was only just beginning to establish itself as an independent art form.

The large number of photographic portraits dedicated to Frida Kahlo, however, presents a shifting and multifaceted image: there is the Frida captured by the gaze of her lover, the gallery owner, her closest friends, and the most renowned photographers; but also the one observed by reporters and her fellow Hispanic-Americans. The question that arises is therefore not which of these images is the most authentic, but to what extent Frida herself influenced these perspectives.

It is precisely this question that the exhibition “Frida Kahlo. The Gaze as Identity” poses to the public, deliberately leaving the answer open. The exhibition is not intended to be a biography in images, but rather an opportunity to reflect on the image of Frida Kahlo and on the way in which the artist herself contributed to the construction of her own myth, well ahead of what Guy Debord would have called the society of the spectacle.

In collaboration with: Fondazione Bologna Welcome, Dipartimento Cultura del Comune di Bologna and Fondazione Carisbo

With the support of: Card Cultura

Cover image: © 2026 Imogen Cunningham Trust