Vertical Presence

and Frida Kahlo's bed

A blood-red tree erupts from a bedframe. I circle the sculpture, gazing from the roots to the branches.

In tandem with a new opera about Frida Kahlo & Diego Rivera coming to New York, the Museum of Modern Art is hosting an exhibit of the duo’s paintings.

Set designer Jon Bausor places a replica of Kahlo’s bed at the heart of both the opera and the exhibit – the axis of her mythic realm.

Model of the opera stage design by Jon Bausor features Frida’s bed, and a symbolic red tree.

Polio and spinal injuries often confined Frida to her bed; she installed a mirror in the overhead canopy so that she could paint her self-portraits. The mirror opened an inner landscape where she could imagine other versions of her self.

I’ve been reading interviews with the poet Li-Young Lee. His work engages what he calls the “universal mind,” and a “vertical” exploration of the psyche.

This contrasts with much of our cultural discourse, which, he says, operates at a shallow “horizontal” level. TV and magazines only provide social chatter, while Lee wants to explore the depths of our Presence vertically.

Kahlo’s surreal self-portraits are “vertical” while Rivera’s political murals are “horizontal.” He looked outward at society; she painted variant aspects of her inner being.

Diego Rivera painted murals calling for radical social changes.

This presence is the red tree that rises from Frida’s dream-bed, her altar. Her body was constrained; her imagination was not. The mirror above her did not merely reflect a face; it opened a chamber of possible selves.

My own constraints are not physical – old mental patterns keep me in a rut. It’s so easy to slump on the couch, turn on the tv, and watch yet another detective show.

Li-Young Lee states:

“Art is a way to manifest complete presence.”

For Lee, the finished artwork is not itself the prize; instead, “the total presence is the grail.” The transformation of the psyche is the true project.

This screen-page is my mirror – a site where the self can appear in its many layers. I want to speak as the essential version of myself.

The summoning of focus is the true work; the essay is merely its trace. The page is the altar where attention is practiced.

To inhabit this vertical awareness each day – let the red tree grow from my spine.

NOTES:

Paintings are copyright the estates of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera

Link to MoMA exhibit info: https://www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/5882

Info about Li-Young Lee: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/li-young-lee

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