January 24, 2026 
In conjunction with Frida: The Making of an Icon, James Oles, consulting curator for the exhibition, sits down with curators Miguel A. López and Tobias Ostrander, artist Amalia Mesa-Bains, and documentary filmmaker Trisha Ziff to explore Frida Kahlo's story and how the artist grew from little-known painter to global icon, as well as the ways in which she continues to inspire artists today.

About the Speakers
Miguel A. López is a writer and the chief curator of the Museo Universitario del Chopo, UNAM, in Mexico City. He was curator of the 2024 Toronto Biennial of Art. Between 2015 and 2020, he served as chief curator and co-director of TEOR/éTica in San José, Costa Rica. His recent exhibitions include two major retrospectives of Cecilia Vicuña: Seehearing the Enlightened Failure at Kunstinstituut Melly, Rotterdam and Dreaming Water: A Retrospective of the Future (1964–…), presented at the MNBA, Santiago; Malba, Buenos Aires; and Pinacoteca, São Paulo. In 2016, he received ICI’s Independent Vision Curatorial Award.

Amalia Mesa-Bains is an artist and cultural critic best known for her large-scale installations and interpretations of traditional Chicano altars and ofrendas. Her work explores Mexican American women’s spiritual practices, addresses colonial and imperial histories, the recovery of cultural memory, and their roles in identity formation. She has been the recipient of numerous international awards throughout her career, among them, the prestigious MacArthur Genius Grant in 1992. 

James Oles is adjunct curator at Wellesley College’s Davis Museum, where he also teaches in the art department. His books include the groundbreaking South of the Border: Mexico in the American Imagination, 1914-1947 and the survey text Art and Architecture in Mexico. More recently, he organized Diego Rivera’s America, an in-depth exploration of the artist’s work of the 1920s–1940s and Mexichrome: Fotografía y Color en México, the first comprehensive history of color photography in Mexico. 

Tobias Ostrander is the Estrellita B. Brodsky Curator at Large, Latin American Art at Tate Modern, London. He is the curator at Tate for the exhibition Frida: The Making of an Icon. Other recent exhibitions include To Weave the Sky: Textile Abstractions from the Jorge M. Pérez Collection, Espacio23, Miami and Taka Fernández: Paisaje Polidimensional, Sala de Arte Público Siqueiros, Mexico City. He is the former chief curator and deputy director for curatorial affairs at the Pérez Art Museum Miami, a founding member of Tilting Axis, and was previously director at the Museo Experimental El Eco and chief curator at Museo Tamayo.

Trisha Ziff is a curator of photography and documentary filmmaker whose films focus on the photographic image. A Guggenheim scholar, her exhibitions have been seen at major international museums including: Victoria & Albert Museum, London; California Museum of Photography, International Center for Photography, New York and Centro de la Imagen Mexico City.