ARTIST |
Toztli Abril de Dios |
TITLE |
Wearable costumes that Diego Rivera had designed for modernist ballet, “H.P. (Horsepower)”. |
YEAR |
2022 |
artist’S COUNTRY OF ORIGIN |
Mexico |
DIMENSIONES |
Variable |
MEDIUM |
Hand-woven unitard. Banana-shaped cape, stuffed with cotton. Mask in papier-mâché and headdress made of wood, wire, and green canvas. All materials are of organic origin. |
Credits: Piece made by request of James Oles by Toztli Abril de Dios with the valuable collaboration of Elena Gore and Gabriela Esther de Dios. Mexico City 2022
“King Banana” and “Mr. Tabacco” are contemporary recreations of two costumes made by Mexican artist and designer Toztli Abril de Dios from Diego Rivera’s original sketches for the ballet “Horse-Power” (H.P.). This ballet, originally presented in 1931 at the Philadelphia Metropolitan Opera House, dealt with the problematic co-dependent relationship between North and South America. The work’s main criticism concerned the exploitation of the working class as a consequence of capitalism. The play did not receive good reviews, and it was never performed again. For Abril de Dios’s contemporary interpretation, the artist used materials from the 1930s to evoke that historical moment, while avoiding the use of the original papier-mâché proposed by Rivera which was criticized.