Frida Kahlo, Brexit, and a 15th-century tarot deck anchor a wide-ranging new episode of The Week in Art
Tate Modern in London has opened Frida: The Making of an Icon, an exhibition that traces the Mexican artist’s paintings and the far-reaching influence of her image across art and popular culture. The show first appeared at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and is now on view in London until 3 January 2027. In the episode, host Ben Luke speaks with Tobias Ostrander, the exhibition’s co-curator, about how Kahlo’s legacy has been framed for a contemporary audience.
The program also turns to a different anniversary: 10 years since the UK voted to leave the European Union. Luke speaks with Alexander Herman, director of the Institute of Art and Law in London, about what Brexit has meant for art and cultural heritage law. The discussion places legal change at the center of a broader cultural question — how institutions, collections, and cross-border exchange have been reshaped since the vote.
The episode’s Work of the Week is the Visconti-Sforza Tarot, a deck made by Bonifacio Bembo in 1456-58. Forty-five cards from the set are held between the Morgan Library and Museum in New York and the Accademia Carrara in Bergamo, and they are reunited in the Morgan’s new exhibition, Tarot! Renaissance Symbols, Modern Visions, on view from 26 June to 4 October. Luke discusses the work with Joshua O’Driscoll, one of the show’s curators.
Taken together, the episode moves from Kahlo’s modern iconography to the legal aftershocks of Brexit and then to a Renaissance object whose symbolism still feels newly legible. It is a reminder that the art world’s most durable stories often travel across centuries, institutions, and disciplines at once.
