Frida: The Making of an Icon, which opened at the Tate Modern today, has already broken records. Officially the highest pre-selling show in the gallery’s history, with 35,000 tickets already sold, the exhibition preview was swarming with people. Some were dressed up as Frida Kahlo, others scoured the room with pen and paper to make note of the works on display for the first time. The Mexican artist may have died in 1954, but from where I’m standing, she has not lost one ounce of stardom. 

“She’s very much the girl that refuses to go away, and she’s going to refuse to go away for a long time because of what she represents,” explains curator Mari Carmen Ramirez. “A mestiza, wife, bi-sexual woman, and political activist.” This has culminated into something utterly unique: Fridamania. “From my point of view, Frida Kahlo has ceased to be just a painter or an artist. She really embodies a cultural phenomenon. 

“That cultural phenomenon has a series of features; one of them is how Frida inspires people not only to look at her but to embody her. There’s a whole section of the exhibition about artists who have dressed themselves like Frida and staged themselves as her. This is something that doesn’t happen with other artists; you don’t see anyone dressing up as Picasso or Andy Warhol. 

“The other is how Frida connects emotionally to her audiences – some fans cry in front of Frida, some tear up at the mention of her name. It’s very rare, particularly today.”

Untitled [Self-portrait with thorn necklace and hummingbird], 1940. Image: Nickolas Muray/Collection of Mexican Art.

Image: Tate/Larina Fernandes

As Ramirez explains, Fridamania is something that started long after the artist’s death, tracing its beginnings to a landmark 1982 exhibition at London’s ⁠Whitechapel Gallery – Kahlo’s first retrospective outside of her native Mexico – and the release of Hayden Herrera’s 1983 biography, Frida: A Biography of Frida Kahlo. Since then, the world has gone feverish for Frida – but devoted fans were obsessed with the boundary-breaking artist long before her debut in the capital. 

Born Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo y Calderón in Coyoacán, Mexico, in 1907, she was an inherently creative child, influenced by a family friend who was a printmaker. When she was hit by a bus at the age of 18 – an injury which left her with lifelong pain and chronic health issues – her parents gifted her an easel, paint and brushes to keep her distracted. It was during this period of bedrest and solitude that Kahlo not only experienced the first of many low periods which marked her life, but, ironically, created some of her most iconic self-portraits. She once said: “I paint self-portraits because I am so often alone, because I am the person I know best.” 

The exhibition is split into seven thematic sections, featuring more than 170 works, 30 of which are Kahlo’s self portraits. One of the most iconic images in the exhibition is Untitled Self-portrait with thorn necklace and hummingbird. Curator Tobias Ostrander, says: “We have several of her portraits but this is the most iconic as she portrays herself looking directly at the viewer in a way that represents saints or Christ-like figures. This was painted in 1940, when she had divorced from Diego Rivera but it was a moment of emotional pain for her. This was when she said, ‘I will never take money from a man again’, and she was very determined to make a living out of her work.

“I think that's something very interesting about the use of her image; she was very aware of the value of her own image. People were commissioning portraits of her; by 1940, she’d constructed a persona of how she dressed, how she presented herself in photographs and how she presented herself within art.”

Image: Tate/Larina Fernandes

Frida Kahlo, 1938. Image: Julien Levy/Philadelphia Museum of Art

In fact, no artist in the 20^th century – at least not until Andy Warhol – had such a constant and intimate relationship with the camera as Kahlo. Hundreds of photographs, whether anonymous or credited to her husband (they divorced after 10 years of marriage in 1939, before remarrying a year later) and close friends, reveal her willingness to pose. She is art’s eternal muse. 

The exhibition also explores Kahlo’s long affiliation with Surrealism – the movement's founder André Breton declared her ‘a self-made Surrealist’ – despite the fact she rejected the notion. One such example on display is 1938’s The Frame, which features motifs informed by Surrealism, including masks and skeletons, and a fixation on death and dreaming.

The exhibition culminates by exploring Kahlo’s transformation into a global brand that extends far beyond her art, encompassing her image, style and persona. “Since the 1980s, Frida has been commodified, commercialised and iconised into a phenomenon, which we call Fridamania,” says Ramirez. “The last [part of] the exhibition includes 200 commercial objects, and it’s the first time we take a close look at how Fridamania developed. Despite the negative impact that Fridamania may have on her image, we find that Frida is an icon of incredible resistance and endurance.”

Installation view of Frida Iconica on Carnaby Street in collaboration with Tate Modern.

Image: Tate/Larina Fernandes

Through the licensing of her likeness and partnerships with major brands, Kahlo’s image has been propelled into mainstream culture, appearing on everything from T-shirts and tequila bottles to perfume and Barbies; the latter of which received serious backlash for making her “taller, whiter, and not representing her disability”. 

Fridamania is going one step further in London this summer, with six large-scale murals set to be unveiled around Bankside to honour Kahlo’s life and legacy. Due to remain in place long after the exhibition closes in January 2027, each mural explores different facets of Kahlo’s identity, including feminism, queerness, Mexican heritage and experiencing disability. In the kitchen at the Tate Modern, lauded Mexican chef Santiago Lastra of Kol is also interpreting Fridamania with a unique menu, served until 31 August 2026. Inspired by Kahlo’s family home, her husband’s favourite recipes and her final painting, Viva La Vida, expect three courses of edible artwork. 

Ramirez adds: “What I would like people to take away from this exhibition is an understanding of the complexity of Frida and the complexity of the phenomenon [she created]. Frida is not just an artist or painter, or a market figure – she is a cultural phenomenon. She transcends that: people love Frida, people want to see Frida, people identify with Frida. She continues to represent problems and issues that are still alive today.”

Frida: The Making of an Icon is open until 3 January 2027. Visit tate.org.uk.

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