On a day off we went to Coyoacan to visit a couple of museums. They are somewhat related: the Frida Kahlo Museum and the Leon Trotsky House Museum. Leon Trotsky not only lived at La Casa Azul for a couple of years but also had a short affair with the hostess – Frida Kahlo.
Both museums were somewhat disappointing: one was overpriced and overcrowded, the other poorly kept with underwhelming exhibitions.
There are some who thinks Kahlo’s ascent to greatness wasn’t related to her art. Instead, Fridamaniacs are drawn by the story of her life of a troubled artist, illustrated by her paintings. Sounds sacrilegious but maybe true.
In the Leon Trotsky Museum, there is a poster reciting the tragic fate of the majority of his family, imprisoned or executed during the anti-Trotskyist repression in the Soviet Union. Terrible fate, but… Let’s not forget that Trotsky himself was an ideologist and practitioner of the Red Terror, and was implicated in many practices which became standard in the Stalin era, including summary executions.
On a brighter note, lunch at Tostadas Amatista was very good.
This week in numbers:
59 km – distance cycled
55 – out of Frida Kahlo’s 143 paintings are self-portraits
10 000 – or so people were killed during the Red Terror which Trotsky supported