Frida Kahlo Retrospective

“Timeless Frida

Through halls with colours bright and deep,
Where historical whispers softly creep.
Frida’s brush has awakened their flame,
Each stroke of courage has a lasting name.
Come walk with me through shadows and light,
Where stories of strength come into sight.

With gentle features and a lute that sings,
An androgynous figure the ages bring.
Life’s fleeting beauty, love’s tender tone,
Captured in music, now set in stone.
Frida’s gaze asks, bold and clear,
“What do we leave when we disappear?”

A fan she holds, yet more it conceals,
A world of chaos her soul reveals.
Nature’s splendor in patterns entwined,
Frida’s face adds layers refined.
Strength in fragility, a lesson to share,
Her grace reclaims the world with care.

She turns to us, a question she wears,
A pearl of light through the darkness she bears.
Frida steps in, her pain shining through,
Her gaze is as bold as the morning dew.
“Do you see me? Do you hear my plea?
Our strength is shared; it binds you to me.”

A secret smile, both warm and cold,
A timeless story, both shy and bold.
Frida and Lisa, sisters in life and art,
Bearing the weight of a world torn apart.
“We reflect the truth, though veiled it may be,
Our worth stands strong for all to see.”

Upon the chaise, defiant and proud,
A gaze unflinching, her spirit unbowed.
Frida reclines, her scars in view,
Her body, her truth breaking through.
The flowers are not for a man’s gain,
But for all who rise above life’s disdain.

A goddess of wisdom, her fist raised high,
Her bronze form echoes a battle cry.
Frida’s Athena stands fierce and wise,
With justice and truth her eternal guise.
She calls to the women who march today,
“Forge your path; show them the way.”

Thus ends our journey through Frida’s hall,
A tribute to women who rise through it all.
Each painting, each statue, a beacon of might,
A story of courage, a flame in the night.
Frida’s voice whispers, her legacy clear:
“Carry these truths, and hold them near.”
Malmö, December 2024

In July, Frida had been in Malmö for almost a year and had already performed in three plays at the Nöjesteatern. By autumn, she was scheduled for a fourth. It was also seventy years since she had left Earth to journey to her star. The thirteenth of July held no special reason for her to celebrate. Time-travelers rarely have cause to commemorate their death dates, as they dislike speaking about death. Moreover, most perceive eternity as infinitely preferable to their time on Earth. Behind them, they leave pain and illness, and in eternity, they can live at any age of their choosing, free from the fear of death or other anxieties.

However, Frida chose to honour her short life on Earth—only forty-seven years—because of a celebrated event in the art world: the Frida Kahlo Retrospective. This retrospective, celebrating women's strength and resilience, uplifted and empowered all who experienced it.

It brought together all the paintings Frida had created after she had laid down her brush for the last time. Her life had been marked by severe health issues, and from 1953, she was bedridden following an amputation. However, this did not deter her from her passion for painting or even participating in political events; her bed was carried wherever she wished to go, a testament to her unwavering determination and courage. Her resilience in the face of adversity is a source of inspiration for all.

Frida embarked on an ambitious project that set her apart from other artists in eternity. She encountered artists from all eras and decided to paint extraordinary women from history with whom she identified. This unique project, with its fresh and innovative interpretations of historical art, was a testament to her creativity and the power of art to transcend time and space, sparking intrigue and appreciation in the audience.

Thus, Malmö’s Moderna Museum paintings, including canvases and statues with Frida, embody well-known motifs but now feature her face and body. The entire collection had been discovered in a hidden room behind a wall at Casa Azul, The Blue House, her home in the Coyoacán neighbourhood of Mexico City. Three dozen previously unknown paintings caused a global sensation and debate, as their style did not match her known works. The international attention these previously unknown paintings received underscored the exhibition's significance in the art world, making it a cultural event of global importance.

Never in art history had so many prominent women gathered in one place for an exhibition. With Frida’s face as a unifying element, the exhibition showcased all the feminine qualities that unite strong women throughout time. This unifying element of Frida's face in the exhibition is a powerful symbol of feminine unity, highlighting the strength behind men’s pompous façades that have carried humanity forward. It's a celebration of women's collective strength and resilience, inspiring a sense of connection and empowerment in the audience.

Throughout history, strong women have shared traits like empathy, perseverance, intuition, and the ability to use emotions and vulnerability as sources of strength. These “feminine” qualities have served as tools for change, leadership, and resilience in a world that often underestimates their power. Add to that that women are just as intelligent, talented, and capable as men. While they may have lacked men’s physical strength, who cares about that among all these beautiful, sensual women Frida had painted?

Since none of the works were groundbreaking and were, in the strictest sense, replicas of well-known works by her artistic predecessors from antiquity onward, they created little sensation beyond the fact that no one had seen them before. Critics cited this latter point as proof that the exhibition was a hoax. Frida laughed heartily, for indeed it was a hoax—but a noble one, as its purpose was just.

Visitors were particularly fascinated by the stories accompanying each work. These stories recalled the women behind the seductive canvases—lives that deserved to be remembered not because they were unique but because they represented countless women who had lived and worked on our Earth.

Frida had chosen to paint in a new style and technique rather than imitate each artist’s brushwork. Superficially, the works resembled the originals, but the brushstrokes were as if all the artists had held the brush simultaneously. In a way, they had, for that is how spirituality works—independent of time and distance.

Moderna had transformed into a grand display of human progress with women in focus. Six monumental canvases hung in the largest hall of the Moderna Museet, with ceilings over ten meters high. Frida’s face, depicted in different settings, illustrates humanity’s spiritual development through various stages of life. The sheer scale reflected her ambition to create art that was not just to be viewed but experienced as both a physical and spiritual journey, provoking deep reflection. While each original artist conveyed their message in the source works, the room, with Frida’s interpretations, told the story of humanity’s progress with women at the forefront.

To the left hung Caravaggio’s The Lute Player, with its soft, almost feminine features representing youth, beauty, and the allure of the sensory world. The gaze was gentle, directed at the viewer, an invitation to both music and love. Frida, being a woman and a bisexual one, fit perfectly into the Italian’s work. Whether the original lute player was male or female has been much debated. The model was likely a young man, which was common in Caravaggio’s art, where he often used young men as models in both spiritual and profane works. During Caravaggio’s time, it was not unusual for young men to be depicted with feminine traits in art, especially when the theme was musical or romantic.

The Lute Player delves into the universal duality of love and life, portraying beauty and transience, harmony and discord, pleasure and impermanence. The violin under the lute and other symbols reinforce this theme, reminding the viewer that music and love are wonderfully intense but also fleeting and not without their sorrows. This universal exploration invites the audience to connect with the artwork personally.

The Lute Player—as the artist told Frida—reflects a more profound question about the impermanence of life, the nature of love, or the role of art in understanding the world. Caravaggio’s ability to combine sensuality, realism, and symbolism made it possible to use the painting to explore earthly and metaphysical questions. What is clear is that the work invites the viewer to reflect on questions of beauty, time, and humanity’s place in the universe.

Frida’s interpretation of Gustav Klimt’s ‘Woman with a Fan’ hung to the right. She told me about the piece, turning it into a personal, spiritual reflection. I couldn’t share it with others except as part of a fanciful exhibition presentation, which is another matter. However, I had the support of notes Frida had left among her remaining paintings. The handwriting was unmistakably hers, and the comments were crucial for understanding the purpose of the works and why she had hidden them. The world wasn’t ready for that kind of message in the 1950s, and it had to wait until later. And that time was now. I quote Frida’s own words:

“When I first saw Klimt’s Woman with a Fan, I immediately felt that she spoke to me as if her gaze was searching for something I had long been trying to understand. It wasn’t just a painting; it was a mirror of the beauty, mystery, and pain that women carry within us. I imagined myself in her place, a different kind of woman, but still the same.

I took in the decorative, non-figurative background, the patterns almost coiling around her, and realised it wasn’t just a backdrop—it was her world. It was chaotic and rich, filled with peacocks and flowers, as if she carried all of nature’s beauty and burden in her gaze. I thought: That could be me. Or you. We are all part of this web of life and colour.

And the fan—it wasn’t just an ornament. It was a tool, shield, or symbol of her control over her life. She held it with such natural grace, and I saw how she balanced between a symbol and a real woman. It was as if she said: ‘I’m not just here to be seen—I am looking back at you.’

When I painted my version, I realised something important. The nameless woman was not just a woman. She was every woman who has ever stood between the chaos of the world and her own heart. Klimt, I believe, knew this. He hid her identity not to make her anonymous but to let us fill her with ourselves. He undoubtedly had a muse, someone he met and knew well. I won’t reveal her name, for it doesn’t matter.

I painted my face in her place because it was impossible for me not to see myself there. I painted the background with colours representing my world: roses and flowers from Mexico, blossoms and leaves from my dreams. I thought: ‘If the world sees me now, let them see everything I carry, everything I am.’

But there was more than beauty in her; there was impermanence. I saw the flowers wilting behind her, and the peacock, so proud and beautiful, was also a symbol of how we are created and lost in time. Just like myself—my body, which bore pain and transformation but which still created, painted, and loved. I wonder if Klimt saw the same thing I noticed in herself: the strength in our fragility.

And what did Klimt want to say? He wanted us to stop and see—not just see her, but truly see her—as part of the world, as part of us. He wanted us to understand that beauty doesn’t exist in isolation—it reflects life, with all its complexity and impermanence.

So yes, I copied his motif but did not imitate it. I placed myself there to say, ‘Here I am. And here you are. We are the same, yet different. We all carry a fan; we all vanish with time, but we leave behind something greater than ourselves.’

When I finished painting, I hung my version next to my other works and smiled. Klimt created a woman with a fan; I made a woman who sees the world and holds on to her heart. And in that moment, we were equals, he and I. Two artists are trying to understand life, one brushstroke at a time. Now, in eternity, without having an answer to the original question. In the timeless realm, where we meet people from all times and cultures, we realise there are no definitive answers to the eternal questions. Life’s mystery is as infinite as the questions themselves. I invite you, the audience, to share your interpretations and reflections on these artworks, as art is a conversation that transcends time and space.

This brings us to the next painting, where Frida shares her interpretation of Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring.

“It wasn’t during my time on Earth but during a study visit a few years ago. I visited all the major Dutch museums of significance and eventually ended up at Mauritshuis, a museum in The Hague.

Standing before Vermeer’s painting, I felt something I hadn’t felt in an eternity. It was as if she had turned around, just for me, to whisper something I could never hear but somehow understand. Her face was so simple, so still—and yet she carried the mysteries of the entire world in her gaze. I thought: ‘How can someone so silent speak so loudly?’

When I looked at her, I didn’t just see a girl. I saw a question. I saw someone wondering about her life, her place in time, and her worth. And the pearl—it wasn’t just a piece of jewellery. It symbolised her fragility, her strength—a drop of light in the darkness. I thought: ‘She and I, we’re not so different. We carry the same questions and the same burdens. I must paint her—but I must also paint myself in her place.’

Back in my hotel room, I set up my easel and began reshaping her face into my own. Her smooth, almost innocent complexion gave way to my face—a face that had borne pain, love, and an entire world of struggles. Her quiet elegance met my eyebrows, gaze, story, and questions. I kept her turban, for it was like a crown—pale azure with a veil tinged by the sun’s reddish-yellow heat—but I altered the details to make it my own.

And the pearl? I let it remain, but in my painting, it became smaller, with a touch of gold in its setting. It was no longer just a symbol of beauty but of my weight: my dreams, pain, and Mexico. It was like a tear, a pearl born of hardship—just like me.

When I finished painting her gaze, I realised it was no longer just mine or hers. It was everyone’s. It was a question directed at the world: ‘Do you see me? Do you hear me?’

Vermeer knew how to create magic from the ordinary. He could capture light as if it were born from the skin itself. I didn’t try to imitate his technique—it’s impossible—but I borrowed his light. I made it my own, letting it reflect my colours, shadows, and inner life. I gave her the same quiet strength, but now it was a strength that spoke louder, that screamed: ‘I am here! I exist!’

When I looked at her once I was done, I thought: ‘She’s no longer just Vermeer’s girl. She’s my sister, my friend, but perhaps most of all, myself.’ And perhaps that’s the nature of art—that we all wear a pearl in our ear, a symbol of what we’ve endured and still hope for. Vermeer gave us beauty, but we give it meaning through observation and thoughts.

So there she hangs now, in my version, with my face but still with the pearl. And she still whispers, but now I decide what she says. And perhaps this is what she says: ‘We women carry the world—sometimes in a simple earring, sometimes in our gaze. See us. Understand us. And carry us forward.’”

I would say a few steps to the right hangs another enigmatic woman—overanalysed. I’ve met La Gioconda, the woman with the mysterious smile in a painting never delivered to its commissioner, her husband. Lisa del Giocondo was an Italian noblewoman, and Leonardo fell in love with her. She was a mother of six and lived a comfortable, ordinary life. Too ordinary, one might say, because she felt trapped, and the love was mutual. In his fifties, Leonardo was fully occupied with meeting the needs of rulers by designing intricate weapons, so painting was a side pursuit. Their relationship was never consummated, if we’re to believe Leonardo, who otherwise led an almost asexual life. He wasn’t gay, as some have suggested, but more interested in art and inventions—nearly obsessed. Until he met Lisa, that is. With her by his side, he felt he could move mountains. That’s how he saw it. That’s why her husband never got the painting; it wasn’t for sale for any amount of money. It travelled with Leonardo wherever his work took him. Only after his death did it pass to Leonardo’s long-time apprentice, Salai, who kept it until he departed from Earth.

Mona Lisa is more than a painting—it’s a riddle that never stops speaking. Leonardo, in his love for her, filled the painting with so much more than we see at first glance. Lisa’s smile is like a whisper from another world, a promise that there’s something more we weren’t meant to understand. It also mirrors Leonardo’s mouth because they smile together, sharing a mutual secret.

The smile is both warm and cool, inviting yet distant. Leonardo shows that we can never fully capture a person's truth. We see only a part; the rest is hidden in shadows and silence. Lisa’s smile is like life: sometimes joyful, sometimes sorrowful, but infinite and mysterious.

Lisa meets your gaze, but she also looks beyond you. She knows something the rest of us don’t. But now her secret is out, for in eternity, everyone knows it—that she and Leonardo live together on a star. The painting hangs above their bed; the one in the Louvre is a replica of Leonardo's portrait, while the original was lost for a few years in Italy. No technique on Earth can reveal what stardust creates.

Leonardo mastered sfumato, a technique that softened the transitions between light and shadow. Every brushstroke in Mona Lisa feels like a breath, a movement. It’s as if she’s almost alive. I believe this was Leonardo’s saying that art can capture life itself—but only nearly. What we see is an illusion, but an illusion that touches on truth. Leonardo painted Lisa with a quiet strength that doesn’t shout but is. Her posture is calm, but her presence is powerful. Lisa is a woman who knows her worth and who has nothing to prove. Leonardo also wanted to honour the enigma of womanhood—our ability to be both individuals and symbols of something greater.

By the way, Lisa isn’t called “Mona” at all. “Mona” is a polite way to address a woman—originally ma donna, or madonna, shortened to “Monna,” akin to the English My Lady or Madam. Simply, Monna Lisa.

When I asked Frida why she painted Mona Lisa, she replied:
“Because an ordinary woman, living an ordinary life, can possess inner strengths that captivate geniuses like Leonardo. You can’t call someone average just because they live. Another example is the Norwegian Marianne Ihlen, who became the muse of the great poet Leonard Cohen—a love that also lives on among the stars.” Frida had met them up there and greatly admired Cohen’s music. I am also, and in a way, it was Cohen who made it possible for me to speak with Frida like this. But that’s a story for another time.

Frida smiled enigmatically at the viewer on a relatively more minor canvas left of the huge Lisa. The original image isn’t housed in a museum but comes from the movie My Fair Lady, which originates from the stage and ultimately from the play Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw. “Talk about a class journey,” Frida said, sparking my curiosity as I hadn’t immediately recognised the person Frida had depicted.

Frida told me about the flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, whose rough Cockney accent had condemned her to remain in the gutter literally. She was discovered by Professor Henry Higgins, a scholar of phonetics, who was convinced that one’s accent determines a person’s prospects in society. In short, Professor Higgins accepts a challenge from a friend to prove that it’s possible to transform the life of someone so lowly simply by changing her speech. Thus, Eliza begins her lessons with the professor.

Eliza's father, Alfred P. Doolittle, a dustman, learns of his daughter's new residence ("With a Little Bit of Luck"). He shows up at Higgins’s house three days later, ostensibly to protect his daughter's virtue but in reality to extract some money from Higgins, and is bought off with £5, a considerable sum at the time. Higgins is impressed by the man’s honesty, natural gift for language, and especially his brazen lack of morals. Higgins recommends Alfred to a wealthy American who is interested in morality.

Despite enduring Higgins’s demanding teaching methods and harsh treatment, Eliza never gives up. His servants grow annoyed by the noise and pity Eliza, but she remains steadfast. She makes no progress, but just as she, Higgins, and his friend Pickering are about to give up, Eliza finally 'gets it.' She instantly begins to speak with an impeccable upper-class accent and is overjoyed at Higgins dancing with her. This moment of triumph is a testament to her resilience. Slowly but surely, Eliza grows as a person. Her fundamentally good qualities, coupled with her polished speech, allow her to enter upper society. Professor Higgins falls in love with his pupil, but the love is unrequited, and she goes her way.

I thought about Miss Doolittle the other year—or perhaps more about all the women she represents. She is a girl from humble beginnings who, through her strength and determination, not only transformed her exterior but also took control of her inner self. I saw her not just as a character in a book or musical but as a symbol for all women who grow despite the world’s attempts to keep them small.

When I painted her, I began by imagining her as a flower girl on the streets of London. I painted her with hands that bore the weight of labour and the hope for a better future. I placed roses in her arms—not for her to sell, but to represent the beauty she carried within, which had not yet had the chance to bloom.

But Eliza grows. She doesn’t just become part of society; she reshapes it. So, I painted her in an elegant dress and a grand, stylish hat but added a detail that would always remind us of her background—perhaps a flower tucked into her hair, maybe the worn shoes she refused to throw away. She carries her journey with her, as all women do.

And her gaze—oh, that was the hardest part. How do you paint a gaze that says: “I know where I come from, and I know what I deserve”? I painted her with her head held high but with a gaze that still saw the world with empathy despite everything it had done to her.

Eliza is not just a character—she is a revolution. She is a yes to growth and a no to letting anyone else determine her worth. When she rejects her teacher’s proposal in the book, she does something so many women before her never had the opportunity to do—she chooses herself. She says, 'I am not your creation. I am my own.' This act of self-empowerment is a powerful message to all women, inspiring them to take control of their own lives and choices.

And think of all the women who were her predecessors, even if their names were never recorded. Women who worked in fields, in factories, and on the streets. Women who silently bore the weight of the world but still found time to dream. It’s their voice we hear in Eliza, their strength we see in her journey. Eliza's journey is not just her own but a reflection of all women's collective strength and resilience.

When I finished my painting, I realised she wasn’t just Miss Eliza Doolittle. She was also me, and she was many women. She was everyone who has ever risen and said, “I can do more. I deserve more. And I choose myself.”

And perhaps that is the very heart of feminism—to give every woman the right to be herself, no matter where she comes from, and to stand firm in the world, just like Eliza did.

The painting beside, my version of The Birth of Venus, perhaps differs most from the original, but in a realistic way. The delicate, innocent, inquisitive smile of the original was something I neither could nor wanted to emulate. I am far too mature to be reborn as a simpleton. That must have been what Sandro Botticelli had in mind when he painted his Venus in the late 1400s. In his image, she certainly does not resemble what she became—a promiscuous goddess, often depicted nude. After a short but intense life on Earth, with relationships with both men and women, I know what Botticelli’s girl should have understood as the goddess of love, but judging by her naive smile, she had no clue. That kind of deceitful image doesn’t resonate with me.

When I painted my Venus, I realised I couldn’t fit into her form or adhere to Botticelli’s ideals. His Venus hovers over the world on a foam of illusions. She is beautiful, but she is also an empty vessel, a projection of men’s wet fantasies rather than a reflection of love’s reality. I am not a projection. I am Frida, and my Venus would never walk around pretending that love is something simple or pure. Love can be both messy and fiery.

So, I gave her my face—not the one men might have shaped to their liking, but my actual face, moulded by pain, lovers, betrayals, and triumphs. My Venus was not born merely from sea foam but from blood, sweat, and tears. She carries the scars of battles waged by the body and the heart, and her gaze meets the world without fear.

Her hair—Botticelli gave his Venus flowing, perfectly arranged curls that floated like clouds. My Venus has hair whipped by wind and storm, hair that is alive and wild. And dark and dangerous. Not an innocent blonde floating on clouds of men’s dreams. I kept the shell—though it isn’t visible in the painting—but she no longer stands passively, waiting to be rescued by the wind or clothed by others. No, she stands as a force unto herself, as someone who knows what love can give and what it can take.

The background, with its soft landscape and calm sea, became entirely different in my painting. I didn’t paint a sea birthing an innocent goddess. I painted a stormy sea, with waves crashing against the shell, where the world is no longer still. Because love is not still. Love is movement, change, and sometimes destruction. My Venus, I learned this through experience, not through smiles.

And her body—Botticelli cloaked her in shadows and light as if to protect her from the world. I gave her a body that does not apologise, a body that knows it is both a prison and a freedom, a body that has loved, suffered, and survived. I wrapped myself in a piece of damp linen because there was nothing more sensual than having sex and being unwrapped, not simply overtaken.

When I finished the painting, I saw that my Venus was no longer a goddess born from men’s fantasies of innocence and submission. She was no longer an idealised projection of a passive woman, created to satisfy a fantasy world that ignores women’s reality and complexity. Think about how some ideas, even today, portray women as rewards in heaven—forty virgins, to speak of an extreme symbol. Forty foolishly smiling dolls who have never lived, felt or fought. Botticelli’s Venus might be one of those dolls with a mild and gentle smile.

But my Venus? She is something else entirely. In my depiction, Venus is me. Dangerous. She is not just me; she is every woman who has loved and lost and has borne the weight of love, its joy, and its pain. She is the one who knows that love is not a simple foam of perfection but an ocean of experiences—deep, sometimes dark, but always honest. My Venus does not carry an illusion; she carries life itself—with its love, weight, and uncompromising truths.

The large painting on the far-right wall, across from The Lute Player, is my reinterpretation of Édouard Manet’s infamous Olympia. The same chaise longue, the same defiant pose, the same Black woman presenting a bouquet from an admirer, probably waiting outside. There wasn’t much in the old image that I couldn’t live up to. But as I stood before the mirror, I realised I would never expose my breasts the way Manet’s Olympia did. Not then, and not now. Not because they are sagging or unattractive with age—on the contrary, they remain as firm as in my prime—but because they are private. My breasts are only for those who deserve to see them.

So, I pulled out an old polka-dotted bikini from the 1950s. It was a bit frayed at the edges, but I thought, “It’ll do for a 117-year-old woman like me.” I sat on the chaise longue and noticed how the yellow-and-black-dotted fabric clung to me as if trying to hold together both me and my history. And as I looked at my face in the mirror, it struck me: this was precisely what Manet wanted us to see—not just the body, but the woman behind it.

When Manet painted Olympia, he shocked the world—not for depicting a nude woman, which artists had done for centuries—but because she looked back. Her gaze, direct and confident, was not there to seduce. It was there to confront the viewer and say, “Here I am. Who are you? Do you want to sleep with me?” She was not the passive, idealised woman that men wanted to see. She was a real woman with a real body and a real life. And that was what made her dangerous.

My Olympia does not carry that danger in the same way. I’ve lived too long, loved too fiercely, and suffered too greatly to be merely dangerous. I am not a semi-prostitute or courtesan as Manet’s Olympia suggests, but I have faced the world with the same defiance her gaze carries. Sitting there posing in my old bikini, I thought: “What does the world see when it looks at me? Do they see me, or just an image?”

I gave my Black woman the same bouquet Manet did, but she is not a supporting figure in my version. She is a sister, an ally who has been through and seen it all, just like me. The flowers are not from an admirer; they are a tribute, a reminder that we women are not here to be consumed. We are our own.

And the hand? The hand that in Titian’s Venus of Urbino beckoned and in Olympia blocked? At first, I wasn’t sure what to do with it. Should I block the world as Manet’s Olympia did? Or should I let it rest as a gesture of weariness, a reminder that I no longer need to play a role? So, I let it simply be relaxed and honest, as much a part of me as my scars.

When I finished the painting, I looked at myself on the chaise longue and thought: “This isn’t just Olympia. This is me. I am no muse. I am no fantasy. I am no projection of what the world wants me to be. I am Frida, and I sit here with my scars, my bikini, and my gaze that meets the world unflinchingly.”

And perhaps that is Olympia’s true legacy—not to be a body, but to be a woman who looks back. A woman who says, “You cannot define me. I am already defined.”

Pallas Athena, the gleaming statue in the middle of the floor, is, in many ways, my pride. I have no known sculptures on Earth—not to say I never tried. Sculpture wasn’t a medium I chose to explore in any significant way, at least not in the public part of my artistry. The attempts I made were discarded, and they were sent to the trash heap. So, when I left Earth in 1954, you could say I wasn’t quite finished.

The French sculptor Auguste Rodin lived on a neighbouring star long before I arrived. Perhaps most famous for The Thinker, he also had a remarkable talent for capturing the essence of powerful women. He taught me to sculpt—not as masterfully as he, of course, but well enough to replicate a Pallas Athena from antiquity. I deliberately raised her clenched hand as a feminist symbol. I thought she would fit nicely in the exhibition, and perhaps she garnered even more attention than the paintings, being the first and only sculpture. My signature was unmistakable—in the etching and the face itself. The flowers in my hair, immortalised in bronze, are as good a signature as any.

But why choose a goddess from ages long before ours? Indeed, she’s nearly 4,000 years old, with roots in Mesopotamia, where goddesses like Ishtar and Inanna paved the way for women who refused to remain in the shadows. A true advocate for women’s rights, I would claim.

But was she a feminist—a woman whom today’s generations might only know as stone, bronze, and myth, yet who remains so vividly alive in her ideas?

Athena was more than a goddess; she was a primal force. She was the goddess of wisdom, the protector of warriors, and the inventor of crafts and strategy. She was not one to wait for the world to change for her. Armed with her spear and sharp mind, she stepped forward and shaped the world on her terms. If that isn’t feminist, then what is?

Athena was born literally of the mind. Let’s start with her birth. No womb for her. No, Pallas Athena sprang straight out of Zeus’s head, fully grown and armed with a shield and helmet. If one chooses to be symbolic, one might say she was born of ideas rather than flesh, intellect rather than biology. This alone can be interpreted as a feminist act—being one’s own creation rather than being shaped by the bodies or seeds of others.

Athena may not have marched for suffrage or demanded equal pay for equal work, but her actions should inspire her modern sisters. She protected cities like Athens, a place that came to bear her name. She stood for wisdom and justice and never hesitated to speak up when she saw something wrong. She fought to resolve conflicts with reason rather than bloodshed.

Let’s not forget her role in inventing crafts and technologies. She gave women the tools to create and shape their worlds—looms, crafts, and creativity that entertained and built societies.

But was she perfect? No, Athena, like everyone, had her flaws. Sometimes, she chose to side with men in stories where other women might have needed her more. Take, for example, the myth of Arachne, the talented weaver who dared to challenge Athena in her craft. Instead of elevating Arachne as a creative spirit, Athena transforms her into a spider to punish her hubris. Yet even there, we see a lesson—not even the most brilliant female icons are perfect, and that’s okay. It doesn’t make her less divine, only more human.

The clenched fist connects Athena to modern feminism. When I sculpted my Pallas Athena, guided by Rodin, with her clenched fist raised to symbolise the fight, I thought about what she would think of our modern struggles. I believe Athena would have respected the women marching in the streets, demanding their voices be heard. She would have nodded at their intelligence and determination, and perhaps she would have led the march, clad in her armour but holding a placard instead of a spear.

Was Pallas Athena a feminist, then? That depends on how you interpret her. She was not one to fade into the background. She stepped forward, took up space, and dared to think and create. She wasn’t without her flaws but was always a beacon, showing that women can be strong, wise, and brave—just as they are.

And perhaps that’s what makes her eternal. Athena is not just a mythical goddess from ancient Greece. She is an idea. She is every woman who has ever chosen to stand up for herself and use her mind and strength to create a better world. And if that isn’t feminism, then what is?

So we could go on, for Frida’s paintings adorned another dozen smaller and larger rooms, each with its own story. Together, they wove the narrative of the gifted Mexican woman and her world of thought into a timeless exhibition of strength, beauty, and resilience.