Liza Bakewell's Remembrance Of An Open Wound

In the beginning of this article, the author Liza Bakewell begins by discussing the profound impact that Frida Kahlo and her work has had on numerous types of people from all over the world. Bakewell then uses the rest of the article to begin to unearth what it is about Frida that resonates and feels so familiar to a variety of different people. It is argued that Frida uses identity politics, specifically Mexican identity, and subjectivity to construct a self that is portrayed within her paintings. Frida lived during a time where the nation of Mexico was attempting to construct a new identity born out of the revolution. It is within this context that Frida demonstrates her individual identity, as a woman of mixed blood, and brings a
sense of power to otherwise marginalized groups.
In addition, Bakewell notes the use of subjecthood within Frida’s work that plays with Mexican symbols and status quo discourse. At the time of Frida’s life women were constructed as other, and within her work she directly challenges this notion. An example of this is within Bakewell’s interpretation of one of Frida’s painting titled Remembrance of an Open Wound. This piece of artwork clearly demonstrates how Frida rejected the common gendered ideologies of the time. An open wound was used as a symbol by Mexican society to demonstrate women’s inherent inferiority. The vagina was described as a “wound that never heals”, or an open wound, that was created by being torn open by a man. Frida immediately rejects this notion of female that is viewed in a negative light in conjunction to masculinity, and she uses this painting to directly challenge the notion of an open wound. Bakewell
describes the three wounds displayed in the painting as one on her foot, another on her leg that is purposefully shaped like a vagina, and the third as a “psychic wound” caused by her husband’s infidelity. In this painting, Frida brazenly rejects the notion of herself as a suffering woman whose life was just to tolerate her husband’s macho ways. Instead, Frida defiantly lifts up her dress revealing an open wound that while shaped like a vagina it is on her leg. Bakewell interprets this act of a genital-like shaped wound as Frida expressing a vagina defined by patriarchy, rather than the one she inherently posses. In addition, it is showed that Frida is granting herself pleasure, once again defying the so-called passivity projected upon women in society. This painting is one way that Bakewell supports the argument that Frida uses her self portraits to define her own gendered and sexual identity, in contrast to the one given to her. In addition to playing with the otherness of gender, Bakewell argues that Frida also does the same with racial discourse. Frida herself was a mestiza -or mixed blood- and she played with this binary that was situated within herself and the society she lived in. Bakewell states that during the early 1920s where Mexico was attempting to form a national identity, the government works to reform marginalized groups, unsuccessfully. It is within this context that Frida emerges as an artist that is willing to address the “conflicts brought on by revolutionary ideology”. Bakewell argues that Frida “emerges as an anomaly in Mexican pictorial history and in the history of Western art in general”. It is then stated the Frida focuses on a gendered version of Mexicanness and uses her work to demonstrate how it impacts identity and subjecthood. An example of this is through her painting What the Water Gave Me, where Bakewell suggests this is the painting that Frida explores her racial identity the most. In this painting, Frida uses her body as a landscape to contextualize “the contradictions and consequences on gendered visions of the landscape”. In a small corner of the painting, Frida paints two women, one light skinned and the other dark, who are separate from the violent landscape that surrounds them. Bakewell interprets this as Frida composing a discourse in which a mestizaje has “nothing to do with the violence that surrounds them”. Bakewell concludes the article by going back to her original question about Frida’s popularity and whether or not her work represents contemporary identity politics.
The answer is yes. Bakewell argues that “the popularity of Frida’s work is best explained as offering models with which individuals today can attempt to meet those preconditions”. I would also agree with this statement. Through learning about Frida, her life, and work, it is clear that she was attempting to bring power back into herself that she could use to understand her own personal subjective identity. This statement is powerful and I would argue resonates with anyone who has struggled with feelings that come from being marginalized in a society that has defined their identity for them. Frida’s work must be interpreted within the context of the time she grew up, in addition to her own political ideology. This to me ties in well with the famous feminist saying: “the personal is political”. Frida used her own personal self to demonstrate her political beliefs and to construct her own identity. This also ties in well with Joan Scott’s argument that gender and politics are intertwined, and Frida uses her painting to display this connection. The political framework she lived under defined her gender using political discourse and Frida then used her personal gender and subjecthood to create political statements that contradicted the status
quo.