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Central and North American artists in the Giardini's central pavilion at the Venice Art Biennale
United States
Louis Fratino (1993)
Louis Fratino paints and draws male bodies to highlight the intimacy and tenderness of everyday queer life.
Puppies Puppies - Jade Guanaro Kuriki-Olivo (1989)
This bronze work is a 3D reproduction of the artist's body.
Guatemala
Paula Nicho (1955)
Paula Nicho, Saludo al Sol Paula Nicho is a Mayan painter from Guatemala.
Her paintings express the balance between the natural and spiritual worlds.
The symbolic dream is at the centre of her works.
The women she paints are goddesses of fertility, healing and weaving.
She shows them naked, painted in bright colours with indigenous geometric patterns.
These paintings are the artist's response to being forbidden to wear her traditional clothes when she was young.
In her paintings, the patterns and colours of traditional Mayan clothing become the very skin of the women she depicts.
Mexico
Frida Kahlo (1907-1954)
Frida Kahlo, Diego and I, Doego y yo Frida Kahlo painted her self-portrait here, in which she incorporated the face of her husband, Diego Rivera, on her forehead.
This picture was painted while Diego Rivera was cheating on Frida Kahlo with Maria Felix, a Mexican actress.
Betrayed, Frida Kahlo depicted herself here in tears to express her pain and sadness.
Her husband Diego's face is like a third eye on Frida's.
And her husband, Diego Rivera is also painted with an eye in the middle of his own forehead.
This third eye has given rise to many interpretations.
For some, it is the "evil eye" to mark the spirit of her husband.
For others, the eye is that of his mistress, symbolised in this way.
Some critics have seen the third eye as a symbol of wisdom and intelligence, and thus as a reflection of Frida Kahlo's admiration for her husband Diego.
Finally, these five pyramid-shaped eyes can also have an esoteric meaning: the five-pointed star or the five fingers of the hand.
The artist has also depicted herself with her hair wrapped around her neck, as if it were going to strangle her.
Olga Costa (1913-1993)
Olga Costa, Self-portrait Olga Costa, real name Olga Kostakowsky, was born in Leipzig, Germany, of Russian parents who had fled the persecution of Jews in Russia.
Once in Germany, Olga's father, influenced by the ideas of Rosa Luxembourg, was arrested several times and the family eventually fled to Mexico in 1925.
Her art was influenced by that of Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo's husband.
She had a brilliant artistic career in Mexico and is considered to be one of the most important female artists of twentieth-century Mexico.
In her self-portrait presented in the central pavilion of the Giardini at the Venice Biennale, she is sitting in the shade on a hot day, looking at us.
She is dressed in Mexican clothes to show that she belongs to her adopted country.
This is no coincidence, since she obtained Mexican nationality the same year she painted this portrait.
Rosa Rolanda (1896-1970)
Rosa Rolanda, Tehuana Here Rosa Rolanda has painted a young Mexican woman, a young girl from the ithsme of Tehuantepec, with her large almond-shaped eyes, brown skin and rounded features.
She is dressed in a Huipil, the traditional garment of Zapotec women, a matriarchal society whose Huipil is said to symbolise female resistance to the patriarchy of twentieth-century Mexican society.
Rosa Rolanda's friend, Frida Kahlo, also wore the Huipil.
The young woman wore a pendant representing a hummingbird, an important symbol in Mayan creation myths.
Diego Rivera (1886-1957)
Diego Rivera, twice married to Frida Kahlo, was one of the most important artists of the Mexican artistic revival in the twentieth century.Here he depicted the writer Ramon Gomez writing.
This very fine painting shows Rivera's cubist approach, in which he depicts the writer's face both from the front and in profile.
Diego Rivera, Ramon Gomez
Miguel Covarrubias (1904-1957)
In this painting “El Hueso” Miguel Covarrubias portrays a Western-dressed native as a modern man.
Miguel Covarrubias, El Hueso
María Izquierdo (1902-1955)
María Izquierdo was the first Mexican female painter to be exhibited in the United States.In her rather severe self-portrait, she wears simple clothing, no jewellery, her only adornment are the braids in her hair.
She is lost in thought and does not look at us.
María Izquierdo, Self-portrait
Alfredo Ramos Martinez (1871-1946)
Alfredo Ramos Martinez is described as the father of modern Mexican art.His painting “Mancacoyota” shows a native woman with intense eyes and great presence.
Alfredo Ramos Martinez, Mancacoyota
Roberto Montenegro (1885-1968)
In this beautiful painting “Pescador de Mallorca“, Roberto Montenegro pays tribute to Mallorca, where he lived for six years.
Roberto Montenegro, Pescador de Mallorca
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