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Photo exhibition "Frida Kahlo. Lo sguardo come identità" (The Gaze as Identity) in Bologna, Italy
17 March 2026
Ergo Expo is pleased to present “Frida Kahlo. The Gaze as Identity,” a photography exhibition dedicated to the Mexican artist and the representation of her image.
Held at Palazzo Pepoli, home of the Museum of the History of Bologna, from March 28 to September 27, 2026, and curated by ONO arte, the exhibition features 70 original photographs by leading photographers, including Edward Weston, Lucienne Bloch, Lola Álvarez Bravo, Julien Levy, Nickolas Muray, Gisèle Freund, Imogen Cunningham, Leo Matiz, Bernard Silberstein, and Graciela Iturbide.
Kahlo was very familiar with photography. After her death, over 6,000 photographic prints were found among her belongings, including those taken by her father, the photographer Guillermo Kahlo, who was the first to photograph her, introducing her to the medium’s potential as a form of expression. It was, in fact, in his photographs that the young Frida began experimenting with clothing, sometimes even dressing in men’s garments.
As she grew up, Kahlo never turned down an opportunity to have her picture taken, whether by friends, relatives, or the artists she came into contact with. It is difficult to find anyone in art history who was photographed as frequently as Frida Kahlo, especially considering that photography was just beginning to establish itself as an independent art form during those years.
The large number of photographic portraits dedicated to Frida Kahlo, however, presents a shifting and multifaceted image: there is the Frida captured by the gaze of her lover, the gallery owner, her closest friends, and the most renowned photographers—both male and female—but also the one observed by photojournalists and her fellow Hispanic Americans. The question that arises, therefore, is not which of these images is the most authentic, but rather how much Frida herself influenced these perspectives.
This is precisely the question that the exhibition “Frida Kahlo. The Gaze as Identity” poses to the public, deliberately leaving the answer open. The exhibition is not intended to be a biography in images, but rather an opportunity to reflect on the image of Frida Kahlo and on the way in which the artist herself contributed to the construction of her own myth, well in advance of what Guy Debord would call the society of the spectacle.
Other info, logistics and tickets at the link below
