Mirror, Mirror, on the Walls

And yet, and yet. In many ways Castillo is as fashionable as can be.

Anyone familiar with contemporary art will recognize at once that the media she prefers -- those giant blown-up color prints, those monitors on pedestals, those manipulated images -- are entirely in vogue.

So, too, is the artist's hard-minded feminism, and her relentless deconstruction of the act of representing what her looking glass reflects.

And similarly familiar is the undertone of nationalism.

Castillo was born in Mexico in 1961. Though she lived for years in Germany, she's still a Mexican artist. Throughout this exhibition -- a collaboration with the Mexican Embassy that was organized in conjunction with the Cultural Institute of Mexico to celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month -- she is recognized as such.

She says: "One of the cliches of Mexican art is the self-portrait." And "I was brought up in a very strict Catholic tradition." And "In Mexican art there is this huge monster -- Frida Kahlo."

Kahlo's harsh self-scrutiny, and her endless me-me-me-ness, echoes through this show. So, too, does the sense that making heartfelt art should be an act of penance. Also there, less blatantly, is an undeniable suggestion of Aztec flagellation. In 1994, when Castillo painted her own head without its skin, she surely was recalling the great god Zipe Totec, in whose holy name so many of her countrymen were similarly flayed.

The Women's Museum is launching a new round of exhibitions done in collaboration with Washington's embassies. This one is the first.

Monica Castillo: The Painter and the Body will remain on view at the National Museum of Women in the Arts, 1250 New York Ave. NW, through Jan. 22. The museum is open Monday through Saturday 10 a.m.-5 p.m., Sunday noon-5 p.m. For information call 202-783-5000. General admission is $8. Admission for students and people 60 and older is $6. Persons 18 and younger will be admitted free.