In 2017 I was cursing a seminar on philosophy and animals at the University of Tsukuba with my friend from Colegio de México, the writer Hiram Ruvalcaba. For my final presentation, I decided to talk about Frida Kahlo’s vision of animals and how animals appear in her paintings. The presentation made for professor Shimizu’s class taught me a hidden story of animal representation in self-portraiture in the West and how Frida Kahlo’s paintings suggested an entirely different paradigm of self-identity. Frida Kahlo’s self-portraits with animals were inspired by her personal story of companion with Mexican animals such as the spider monkey Fulang Chang, xoloitzcuintli dogs, and parrots, and her awareness of nahuales. Nahuales is an ancient and popular vision of personhood that became a central point for my presentation. I made some comparisons between Frida Kahlo’s self-portraits, “Fulang-Chang and I” (1937), “Self-Portrait with Small Monkey (1945), with what I think may be a paradigmatic Western construction: Alexandre-François Desportes’s “Self-Portrait in Hunting Dress” (ca. 1699). Thus this paper compares visual patterns of hierarchy and more fluid and horizontal patterns of relationships with animality. Professor Shimizu encouraged me to work on this paper and send it to a Japanese Journal. Finally, it was accepted and published!. This is my first paper published in English and in a Japanese indexed Journal. I am very thankful to everyone in Japan who gave me their impressions and opinions, Akiko Liang for helping me with the abstract and Ryan Greene, who read this paper when it was a draft, and my mother, who accompanied me to visit Diego-Frida’s Anahuacalli house in Mexico City. Also, this paper attempts to tell a different story of Frida’s self-portraits with animals, looking into the more profound bonds that connected her life with her loved companions.
I uploaded a copy of the article here:
Pictures used in the article:
Florence Arquin (ca 1938) Frida Kahlo and Fulang Chang. (Courtesy Artisphere).
Frida Kahlo. Fulang Chang and I (1937). The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). Analysis, considering plants.
Frida Kahlo. Self Portrait with small monkey (1945) Museo Dolores Olmedo Patiño. Analysis.
Desportes Self Portrait in hunting dress (ca. 1699) Louvre Museum. Analysis.
Abstract in English. The Annual Review of Cultural Studies, Japan: Association for Cultural Typhoon／カルチュラル・スタディーズ学会, no.9. 2021. pp. 96-113.
Abstract in Japanese.
Flor de Amaneceres 