Literature

Frida by Ishiuchi Miyako (2013) is a photographic record of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo's wardrobe and belongings. Following Kahlo's death in 1954 her husband Diego Rivera began placing her personal effects into the bathroom of their Mexico City house, "The Blue House", which later became the Museo Frida Kahlo. Rivera gave instructions that this room should remain sealed until fifteen years after his death and it in fact remained unopened until 2004 when the museum decided to organise and catalogue the contents. Ishiuchi Miyako was invited to photograph these artefacts, over 300 unseen relics of Kahlo's life.

As a project Frida is both a departure from Ishiuchi Miyako's normal practice and a natural conceptual progression. While moving away from the Japanese subject matter of her earlier series, the work reveals Ishiuchi Miyako's continued obsession with the traces we leave behind both as individuals and as a society. In her earlier series, Mother's (2000-2005) and ひろしま/ Hiroshima (2007-), she photographed previously worn garments, evoking the lives and memories of the people who wore them as well as the social climate of post-war Japan.