Frida Kahlo: London exhibit sheds light on troubled life of Mexican artist • FRANCE 24 English

[00:00:02][music] [music] [music] [music] >> Hello and welcome to Arts 24. Thank you for joining us here. Let's head to the Tate Modern Gallery in London where a new exhibition pays homage to the life of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo. Frida, the making of an icon, displays her most famous self-portraits while also shedding light on the difficulties she endured in her life. The exhibition also features works by artists who were influenced by Frida Kahlo. Aha DuPre tells us more.

[00:01:08]>> Frida Kahlo, relatively unknown during her lifetime, >> [music] >> now one of the most influential artists of all time.

[00:01:16]Her iconic unibrow, flower crowns, and vibrant [music] colors are recognized around the world.

[00:01:22]>> She exaggerated as well her androgenous features. She styled facial hair, which was quite radical for the time. Her self-portrature really opens the artist up and she almost feels like an old friend.

[00:01:36]>> Instead of beautifying her portraits, Frida Kahlo remained brutally honest in her art, reflecting a life marked by pain. [music] As a child, she contracted polio, which damaged [music] one of her legs.

[00:01:51]Then, at 18, she almost died in a bus accident. Bedridden for years, forced [music] to wear braces to support her spine, her dreams of becoming a doctor were shattered.

[00:02:03]So, she picked up a mirror and started painting [music] herself.

[00:02:07]Disabilities, miscarriages, heartbreaks, Frida [music] openly depicted subjects rarely tackled by female artists at [music] the time.

[00:02:17]>> She addressed her own personal suffering, emotionally and physical suffering in her work. I think many people identify with that and and through all of that that her sense of strength and resilience is quite unique and I think she pioneered a genre of self-portraiture that has had a huge influence on artists in the last generation.

[00:02:39]>> Amongst them, Carmen Lomas Garza. She created a Mexican altar to honor the fearless revolutionary artist who passed away seven decades ago.

[00:02:50]>> This is an offrenda to Frida Kahlo cuz I learned about her when I was an undergraduate student at the university and I was very impressed with her artwork because the her portraits were so clear to the front.

[00:03:05]And also because I recognized her eyebrows. They were very much like mine were when I was young.

[00:03:13]>> Frida, the making of an icon, showcases more than 200 works by generations of artists she continues to inspire today.

[00:03:23]From movies to commercial objects, Frida Kahlo's become a global sensation dubbed the Fridamania.

[00:03:34]>> Here in France, World Cup fans have been gripped by Panini fever. The famous sticker albums attract both children and adults and have been around in France since the 1960s.

[00:03:45]They appear for major sports tournaments and entertainment franchises like Pokémon. Collectors need patience though to obtain sticker packs to complete the albums. This time round, newsstands have been caught off guard by the craze and fan and fans have been left frustrated.

[00:04:02]Aurore Dupuy and our colleagues at France 2 have more.

[00:04:07]>> World Cup players on stickers, one of the hottest finds for collectors and football fans. [music] On social media, the race is on to track them down.

[00:04:19]>> You can't You can't find them anywhere.

[00:04:20]They're sold out. They don't have the albums. They don't have the World Cup stickers. They're out of stock here.

[00:04:26]>> Same in this tobacco shop. They ran out of sticker packs only 3 days after the tournament kicked off. Only the albums are left.

[00:04:36]>> Do you have any stickers?

[00:04:37]>> No, we've run out.

[00:04:39]>> When are you expecting more?

[00:04:40]>> Sometime next week, hopefully.

[00:04:42]>> I should have come sooner.

[00:04:44]See, we might be able to buy some from people who might have some spares.

[00:04:48]>> Some stickers are rare, so people want them to resell them after the World Cup when prices are expected to skyrocket.

[00:04:56]>> This edition could become a prized item.

[00:04:58]It'll be the second-to-last World Cup collection from Panini, as it will lose the rights after 2030.

[00:05:06]>> Some customers buy boxes of them. Others take 10 packs, 20 packs at a time. I'm still waiting for an order I placed last Friday.

[00:05:14]>> Panini was founded by two Italian brothers in 1961, and the craze reached France in 1976.

[00:05:23]Since then, generations of football fans have spent every major tournament chasing the missing stickers to complete their albums.

[00:05:34]>> I'm only missing one now.

[00:05:36]My son will be happy tonight.

[00:05:38]>> It's for you, isn't it?

[00:05:40]>> Two.

[00:05:42]>> To keep up with the surge in demand, Panini, which prints some of its stickers in France, has boosted its production.

[00:05:51]>> We're distributing in 150 countries around the world.

[00:05:55]Since early April, our three production sites have been running around the clock in three shifts.

[00:06:01]Each site produces up to 11 million stickers a day.

[00:06:07]>> The stickers are sold in sealed packs of seven. Fans never know what they're going to get. Completing a full album of 980 stickers can cost hundreds, if not thousands of euros.

[00:06:21]>> It's often referred to as the grandfather of modern African music. The genre highlife first developed a century ago in the port cities of Ghana.

[00:06:30]Highlife is known for its danceable beats, jazzy horn sections, and lyrics which talk about everyday life. It's mix of colonial brass and traditional rhythms made it an anthem of West African independence. And now, after a long battle for cultural recognition, the genre has been added to UNESCO's intangible cultural heritage list. And artists want to ensure highlife not just survives, but thrives. France 24's Olivia Bizot has more.

[00:07:04]>> This is the sound of a century in motion.

[00:07:07]Highlife first emerged [music] in the 1920s, fusing Ghanaian musical traditions with colonial instruments. Born in exclusive clubs, it became known as the music of the high society.

[00:07:20]Before becoming the soundtrack of West African independence.

[00:07:24]>> So, highlife in itself is a social phenomenon, but then the music now defines what it is. And it comes with a rhythm, the language, you know, the blending of, you know, genres, trying to put folk and, you know, other things together to create one sound. And if you know, you know what highlife is.

[00:07:44]Once you hear it, you will know that this is highlife.

[00:07:48]>> Following independence in 1957, Ghana's first [music] president, Kwame Nkrumah, funded highlife band tours across West Africa to promote Pan-African [music] unity.

[00:08:02]As the sound spread into different styles, Ghanaian musicians feared their role as pioneers would be forgotten.

[00:08:09]Veterans like E.T. Mensah and Nana Ampadu have spent years fighting for [music] recognition.

[00:08:13]>> There was a big risk of highlife, you know, just disappearing into the darkness. But it's there, but nobody mentions it. Musicians across West Africa started playing their own brand of highlife. So, it it would be very easy for them to say, "Hey, this is, you know, where originated. We are the originators of highlife."

[00:08:36]>> Late last year, that advocacy [music] finally struck the right chords.

[00:08:40]>> [snorts] >> UNESCO inscribed highlife on its intangible cultural heritage list, a rare distinction that places it among the world's most treasured musical traditions.

[00:08:52]>> By being on the list, Ghana also has an access to international assistance. It is part of the international cooperation mechanisms of the convention. So, we work together with all the countries together to make sure that the importance of this heritage is understood, valorized, and being used by communities.

[00:09:16]>> That global recognition is now translating back to the stage.

[00:09:22]Highlife bands like [music] Santrofi are bringing Ghanaian rhythms to packed venues from London to Tokyo to Paris.

[00:09:38]For a For a hours it felt like I left Paris, like I traveled thousands of kilometers.

[00:09:44]And now I really want to discover Africa.

[00:09:47]I want to get to Ghana right now. I'm taking the plane immediately.

[00:09:52]>> With its origins now officially protected, highlife's framework continues to shape the continent's modern music industry.

[00:10:00]Serving as a direct [music] with blueprint for global hits in Afrobeats and Amapiano. [music] >> That was France 24's Olivia Bizot with that report from Ghana.

[00:10:16]It's one of the biggest music festivals in France. Solidays kicks off this Friday at Paris's Hippodrome de Paris Longchamp. Solidays was first organized in 1999 to raise awareness and money for the fight against HIV and AIDS. Since its inception, the festival has raised tens of millions of euros for the cause, all in the name of music. Solidays brings together some 200,000 people each year with high-profile concerts, but also talks and exhibitions on offer.

[00:10:47]This year, French hip-hop star Gims will perform, as well as French pop-rap stars Arlson and Bigflo and Oli, and the American EDM group Major Lazer. Let's leave you with this look at Solidays.

[00:11:00]Thank you for watching us here on Arts 24. See you next time.

[00:11:09]>> [music]