Exhibition a portrait of two great artists
Historically speaking, Macau is certainly the best place in Asia to hold Mexican arts exhibitions.
After all, Macau became an entrepot for the export and import of Mexican and Chinese goods back in the 16th century. In fact, it was then that Macau established itself as Mexico's first place of contact with China.
Macau's present legal tender, the pataca, is a former Mexican currency that was also traded in other parts of Asia several hundred years ago.
This month's photographic exhibition, 'Lola Alvarez Bravo, Frida Kahlo - In The Heart Of Mexico', at Macau's Museum of Art, is another example of the ties of friendship between Macau and Mexico. The show features photographs taken by Lola Alvarez Bravo. The main subject, in a collection that includes portraits of other Mexican artists and celebrities, is her friend Frida Kahlo, the painter.
Lola Alvarez Bravo was born in 1907, in the western Mexican province of Jalisco. She was left an orphan at eight years, and brought up by relatives. As a teenager she married a childhood friend, the famous photographer, Manuel Alvarez Bravo. The couple became part of a circle of intellectuals and artists that included Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo. The group symbolised Mexico's militant cultural renaissance of the 1920s and 1930s. For nearly four decades, Bravo worked as a professional photographer for the Department of Aesthetic Research at the National University of Mexico. Her photographs cover the archaeological sites, natural beauty and people of Mexico. She also took photographs of friends and colleagues. Bravo died in 1993. 'If my photos have any value, it's because they show a Mexico that no longer exists,' she said.
Painter Frida Kahlo was born of mixed European and Mexican descent in a suburb of Mexico City in 1907, in the same blue stucco house where she died in 1954. She was seriously injured in a bus crash in 1925, when she was 18 years old. The injuries resulted in long hospital stays, complicated operations and her premature death at 47.
In many ways, Kahlo's art is an expression of her strength and courage in the face of illness and physical suffering. Most of her work - painted on canvas, wooden boards, and tin - reflects her personal life.
A dedicated communist, Kahlo married the famed muralist and social activist Diego Rivera.
The exhibition, which runs till September 30, is co-organised by the Consulate-General of Mexico in Hong Kong and Macau's Provisional Municipal Council. The Macau Museum of Art is open daily, 10 am-7 pm, except Mondays.
