Coinciding with Latino Heritage Month, the McAninch Arts Center (MAC), is hosting a Book Club reading initiative around "Frida in America: The Creative Awakening of a Great Artist" by Celia Stahr. The MAC will present a live virtual discussion of Stahr's book 3 p.m., Sunday, Oct. 4. The discussion, hosted by MAC Director Diana Martinez, will include a Q&A with author Stahr. Tickets are $10 and on sale at AtTheMAC.org.
“We’re thrilled to be able to bring attention to Stahr’s book," says Martinez. "I believe it will give our audience and area Frida Kahlo fans some interesting insights into the artist in advance of their visit to the ‘Frida Kahlo: Timeless’ exhibition coming to the Cleve Carney Museum of Art and the MAC in Summer 2021." In the spirit of community, the Daily Herald is providing promotional support for the Book Club initiative and The Book Store of Glen Ellyn is offering a 15% discount to anyone mentioning "Celia Stahr Book Club."
Mexican artist Frida Kahlo adored adventure and, in 1930, realized her dream of traveling to the U.S. to live in San Francisco, Detroit and New York. Still, at age 23 and newly married to the already world-famous 43-year-old Diego Rivera, she was at a crossroads in her life and this new place filled with beauty, poverty, racial tension, ethnic diversity, bland Midwestern food and a vibrant music scene, pushed Kahlo in unexpected directions. Shifts in her style of painting began to appear and cracks in her marriage widened.
“Frida in America” has been described as the first in-depth biography of these formative years spent in what Kahlo referted to as “Gringolandia,” a place Frida couldn’t always understand. But it was her feelings of being a stranger in a strange land that fueled her creative passions and an even stronger sense of Mexican identity. “Frida in America” recreates the journey that made señora Rivera the world famous Frida Kahlo. Stahr’s narrative is based on the diary of Lucienne Bloch, a woman who became Kahlo’s confidante in the U.S., as well as on correspondence between Kahlo and her family in Mexico.
Celia Stahr, PhD is a native of California, developed a love of art and culture due to her many experiences traveling to Cuba, Mexico, East and Southern Africa, Western Europe, China, and every region of the United States. She has a background in modern and contemporary art history (with a particular focus on issues of race and gender) as well as in African art and the diaspora. Stahr is interested in artists who cross cultural boundaries and the political, social, artistic, and psychological ramifications of such actual or imagined "border" crossings.
About the MAC
The McAninch Arts Center at College of DuPage is located at 425 Fawell Blvd., 25 miles west of Chicago near I-88 and I-355. It houses three indoor performance spaces (the 780-seat proscenium Belushi Performance Hall; the 236-seat soft-thrust Playhouse Theatre; and the versatile black box Studio Theatre), the outdoor Lakeside Pavilion, plus the Cleve Carney Museum of Art and classrooms for the college’s academic programming. The MAC has presented theater, music, dance and visual art to more than 1.5 million people since its opening in 1986 and typically welcomes more than 100,000 patrons from the greater Chicago area to more than 230 performances each season.
About “Frida Kahlo: Timeless”
The exhibition, on view June 5 to Sept. 6, 2021, will be the largest Frida Kahlo exhibition in the Chicago area in more than 40 years, and is hosted by the Cleve Carney Museum of Art (CCMA) and the McAninch Arts Center (MAC) at the College of DuPage (COD). It will feature a 26-piece collection on loan from the Museo Dolores Olmedo as well as a multimedia timeline, 100+ photographic images from the artist’s life, a family-friendly children’s area and a Frida Kahlo inspired garden designed by Ball Horticultural Company, enabling museum-goers of all ages to grasp an understanding of Kahlo’s life and work through a variety of contexts. The exhibition and related programming are organized by “Frida Kahlo: Timeless” Executive Director Diana Martinez (Director of the McAninch Arts Center) in collaboration with Justin Witte, “Frida Kahlo: Timeless” Curator (CCMA Curator). For more information, visit www.frida2020.org and on social media @CleveCarneyMuseumofArt.
The exhibition is presented by Bank of America and made possible through support from the College of DuPage Foundation, Milly and Alan Peterson, Ball Horticultural Company, Nicor Gas, Wight & Company, AeroMexico, the National Endowment for the Arts and the DuPage Foundation.
About the Cleve Carney Museum of Art
The late Cleve Carney provided a significant legacy gift to establish the Cleve Carney Art Gallery at College of DuPage. The gallery opened in February 2014 with its inaugural exhibition “Selections from Cleve Carney’s Art Collection.” The gallery will be expanding to a 2,500 square-foot museum, the Cleve Carney Museum of Art, scheduled to open in the summer 2021 with highly anticipated “Frida Kahlo: Timeless.” Exhibition. The museum will maintain the standards set by the American Alliance of Museums. More information can be found at www.TheCCMA.org and on social media @CleveCarneyMuseumofArt.
The mission of the MAC is to foster enlightened educational and performance opportunities, which encourage artistic expression, establish a lasting relationship between people and art, and enrich the cultural vitality of the community. Visit www.AtTheMAC.org or www.facebook.com/AtTheMAC for more information.
The MAC’s 2020-2021 Season is made possible in part with support by L.L. Bean, Double Tree by Hilton Lisle/Naperville, Folletts, WDCB 90.9 FM and the College of DuPage Foundation.
Established as a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit charitable organization in 1967, the College of DuPage Foundation raises monetary and in-kind gifts to increase access to education and to enhance cultural opportunities for the surrounding community. For more information about the College of DuPage Foundation, visit www.foundation.cod.edu or call 630.942.2462. Programs at the MAC are partially supported through a grant from the Illinois Arts Council Agency.