In this lecture Ramírez will explore the process by which Frida Kahlo, a Mexican woman artist whose trajectory largely unfolded under the shadow of her husband—world-renowned painter and muralist Diego Rivera—was posthumously transformed by sociopolitical, cultural, and economic interests into the global icon she is today. This involves unraveling how her image evolved and how it has been appropriated and reconfigured by at least five generations of artists that include: Chicana/os, Feminists, LGBTQ+, Neomexicanists, Latinx, and Disabled artists. Ramirez will be drawing from brand new research by a fourteen-member team of scholars supporting the ICAA/MFAH exhibition Frida: The Making of an Icon to be displayed in Houston and London in 2026.
Please join us for a reception following the lecture.
Bio: Bio: Mari Carmen Ramírez is the Wortham Curator of Latin American Art and founding Director of the International Center for the Arts of the Americas (ICAA) at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. A globally renowned authority on modern and contemporary Latin American art, Ramírez has published extensively and curated numerous exhibitions, including the award-winning Inverted Utopias: Avant-Garde Art in Latin America (2004, with Héctor Olea); Beatriz González: A Retrospective (with Tobias Ostrander, 2019); Hélio Oiticica: The Body of Color (2006); Contingent Beauty: Contemporary Art from Latin America (2015); HOME, So Different, So Appealing (with Chon Noriega and Pilar Tompkins, 2017); Joaquín Torres-García: Constructing Abstraction with Wood (Menil Foundation, 2009). She’s also conceptualized and implemented the ICAA Documents of 20th Century Latin American and Latino Art Project, a major digital archive and book series focused on primary sources. In 2005 Ramírez received the Award for Curatorial Excellence granted by the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College. That same year, TIME magazine named her one of “The 25 Most Influential Hispanics in America.” In 2023, Ramírez was awarded the Queen Sofía Spanish Institute’s Sophia Award for Excellence by her Majesty, Queen Sofía of Spain.
Co-organized by the Department of Art and Art History’s Art History Lecture Series and the Center for Latin American Visual Studies (CLAVIS).
Funding support provided by the Art History Division Lecture Series, Office of the Dean of the College of Fine Arts, and Sterling Clark Holloway Centennial Lectureship in Liberal Arts.
