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- [00:00]
Host/Interviewer
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Alison Stewart
This is all of it on wnyc. I'm Alison Stewart. When you walk into an exhibit about Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, you might first expect to see their famous paintings. But at a new MoMA show about the famous Mexican artist, the first sensation you'll hear is opera. The exhibit is called Frida and Diego the Last Dream. It's organized in conjunction with a new show about Frida and Diego at the Met Opera. Premiering in May. The Opera set designer John Bowser also helped design how the viewers take in Kahlo and Rivera's paintings at MoMA. Frida and Diego the Last Dream is running now through September 12th. A sample of some of the work of the show is on our Instagram stories now. Olivernyc El Utmo Sueno de Frida y Diego debuts at the Met Opera on May 14. I have with me now in person Beverly Adams, MoMA's curator of Latino Art. Nice to see you again, Beverly. Nice to see you and set designer. I hope I'm saying your last name right John Bowser.
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John Bowser
That's bossa, actually, like saucer Don Bosser,
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Alison Stewart
thank you so much for joining us. I appreciate it. This is a unique collaboration. Beverly, how did the museum first get the idea to create a partnership with the Met Opera?
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Beverly Adams
Well, the museum has had interesting collaborations with the opera in the past. For example, when there was a William Kentridge retrospective at moma, there was also his premiere of his opera at the. At the Met Opera. So it's not something completely unknown to the two institutions, but when we found out that they were going to do a new production of El Ultimo de Frida Diego, we thought, well, we have Frida and Diego. And when, you know, these are artists that we had been long invested in their careers and have long histories with and just thought it would be an amazing idea to have John Basser come and think about our collection as he was thinking about developing the sets and costumes for the opera.
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Alison Stewart
John, the opera is set to debut in May at the Met. What's the basic premise of the opera?
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John Bowser
It's about, it's set on the Day of the Dead, where. And it's two weeks before the death of Diego Rivera, and he's attempting to ask Frieda to take him back, essentially to take him home, to take him to death. And Frieda's having none of it, really. She doesn't want that. She's very happy in her piece, but she does want to create art. And so it's a moment, it's a kind of, a kind of anti love story, I suppose, where the two meet again in death. And on that day of Day of the Dead, basically go up to the terra firmament and experience things taken by Katrina, who's like the guide that takes them between life and death, takes them to the underworld.
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Alison Stewart
And so how did you decide what
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Host/Interviewer
the set would look like?
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John Bowser
I mean, it always comes from dramaturgy, I think the story that, you know, it has to come from what's been beautifully created by Nilo and Gabriella and the, it's a, it's an ever changing set. It's transformational. It starts, it starts off in one place, but there's 22 scenes. It's, and it's moving pretty quickly. It's not a kind of standard four act opera. It's, it's, it's evolving in front of you like, like their work, as I would say. And, and it, and, and so it, it, it does all sorts of things. It takes you from the terra firma, from the, from the ground, and then the ground splits open and out of that, out of that kind of fissure, come the day, it comes the dead, effectively. And from that point onwards, all chaos ensues.
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Host/Interviewer
And we can see that at the
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Alison Stewart
Met when you first walk into the exhibit. Beverly, how did you decide on the focus of this exhibit and what you wanted to explore with both artists?
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Beverly Adams
Well, it really started with what our collection has and also how John wanted to tell his story, tell the story of the opera. What we really wanted to do was bring the collection into the forefront. And Don, which he does beautifully in the exhibition or in the installation, is put a spotlight, literally and figuratively, on all of these works so that you could get a close look at them in this amazing context. One of the things that was important for a point of departure for me is that we have in the collection these beautiful watercolors done by Diego Rivera over the course of a few years, ending in 1932, that were done for this, for the stage set and for the costumes for a ballet that a Mexican composer, Carlos Chavez, did that premiered in Philadelphia in 1932. So we see the artist as stage designer early on in his career, in the late 20s, early 30s. And that, to me, was an interesting meta moment. So I wanted to start with that piece and have it be kind of a. A touchstone for how you see the rest of the works throughout the space.
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Alison Stewart
You know, it's when you first come through this sort of curtained hallway, your eye falls to a piece on the wall. Tree of Hope remains strong. It pictures Kahlo sitting next to the back of a body. She's stretched out. There's bloody scars on her back. It's referring, I think, to Kahlo's spinal surgery. This could be for both of you. Beverly asked you to go first. How do you think this entrance to the exhibit, why was it one of the first things you wanted people to see?
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Beverly Adams
Well, for one thing, you know, it's an exhibition about both of them, but we had to pick some place to start. And this is a work that's not in MoMA's collection, but a loan from a private collector. And it's a spectacular later work from the 40s where you see kind of her story encapsulated the difficulties that she's gone through physically, yet this hope, right, this continuing to move forward. She's in this beautiful tehuana dress. You see her holding her little flag of hope. So her life story is part of her life. It's really encapsulated in this beautiful self portrait. And so we just thought it would be a gorgeous way to start the show because it's such a powerful image. I don't know. John, what do you think?
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John Bowser
Well, I mean, I think for me, it was such a major, you know, a major influence on the design for the show. There's a kind of giant fissure, kind of crack through the center of the piece. And it's. It's all, you know about this duality. There's the light and the dark, which is the theatrical journey that we go through in the actual opera itself. And. And as you say, Beverly, this kind of the twine, the tehuana dress is this beautiful construct that I think had so much influence on what we've done for the costume designs in the show. This sense of that she's constructed this image for herself, like armor effectively over her disability that sits below that and the pain that sits below that. And. And we show that during the show. We show that during the opera itself, this sense of construct, and when we X ray into it, essentially, almost by losing the layers and putting them back on again. So I think as a piece, it had a, you know, as a painting, it had a huge influence. It was. It was just kind of amazing to. To see that in real life and then have the opportunity to spend time with it and to evolve what I was designing on the stage at the Met, you know, accordingly.
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Alison Stewart
And then when you turn to the right of it, you see this beautiful
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Host/Interviewer
red tree with a mirror at the top.
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Alison Stewart
John, would you describe that for us?
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John Bowser
Yeah, I mean, I suppose it's my response to. It's a link between the opera and. And what I designed in the opera, at the center of which is this tree, which is almost like the heart of Frida, which kind of represents, you know, so many things, from the kind of arterial heart to the idea of lineage and her. And her family tree and her pain. But it's in this exhibition. It sits there as this kind of twisted, contorted kind of thing that's trapped within a blue bed like the castle resort, like a framework of the castle resource, and then releasing itself into a. Into a mirror above, releasing into that mirror like that was. Sat on the canopy of her bed that she. She painted. And she viewed so many things from when she was lay there, kind of unable to move and kind of restricted by that. But it. But it's the heart of the heart of the design. As soon as you go into the opera, as soon as we go into the underworld, this tree sits there like a totem, like it does in our show. At moma. But it sits there in the opera as this flown totem at the very heart of everything.
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Alison Stewart
What do you think, Beverly?
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Host/Interviewer
I'm just curious. It's so well staged, the exhibition. All the art is so beautifully staged with these curtains, and they're pulled back, and it immediately draws you into the art. I was curious what was behind that. What do you think about that?
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Beverly Adams
Well, again, this was John's way of the stage. The opera has the singers that are dressed as the characters. So you have Frida and Diego there. They're proxies singing the opera. But what we have are the paintings. So we wanted to create these moments where they were revealed or that you were drawn to see the painting in this way that really felt special, you know, Felt very different, too, than a regular exhibition. Felt like you were. They were not only decorating the set, these paintings, but they were animating the set. They brought it to life.
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Host/Interviewer
It's so interesting. I went around three times. It was really a pretty great example of how you can combine the two. By the way, we're discussing the new exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art about Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera. It's called Frido and the Last Dream. It's on view now through September 12th. It is made in collaboration with the Met Opera, which is premiering an opera about Frito and Diego in May. We are speaking with Beverly Adams, mom and curator of Latin art, and set designer John Bowser, who worked on both the exhibit and the opera. Did I get it right?
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Alison Stewart
I hope so.
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Host/Interviewer
I'll do my very best. There's a picture of Frida's called Self Portrait with cropped hair. Beverly, what is she addressing in this picture?
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Beverly Adams
I think she's addressing, you know, the rocky relationship that she had with her partner, Dina Rivera, in a breakup. And you see her with her hair all cut off and sort of strewn around the picture. She's dressed in a man's suit. It might be Rivera's suit. And then there's a text at the very top of the picture that says, I'm paraphrasing, basically, if you love me, it was for my hair. And now that I'm bald, you don't love me anymore, which I think is a reference to, like, a popular Mexican song, like corridos. And, you know, these paintings are very delicately done, almost like retables, which is another form of popular Mexican painting. But I think it's a reference to. Specifically when it was made, it was a reference to her relationship with Rivera. What I think is Interesting about this picture and all of the Kahlos in the show is that they sort of live beyond maybe their original signification in that, you know, they're so relatable, you know, And I think that there's actually a large exhibition in Houston right now about Kahlo being an icon for so many other artists and that used her works, that her works empowered other artists to write about disability, not to write or write or paint or make operas about things. So I think this picture is one of those that does that. It is about a specific time in her life, but at the same time, it has empowered others to make art and is kind of an icon in and of itself.
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Alison Stewart
If you go upstairs into my office, there's a big Frida Kahlo on my chair. I got huge scarf. Every day when I come in, I bow to Frida.
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Beverly Adams
John.
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Alison Stewart
Scaffolding plays a big role in the design of the show and the opera and part of the exhibition. Why is scaffolding such an important part of the theme?
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John Bowser
Yeah, I mean, I'm fascinated by this kind of construct and this idea, you know, the thing that Diego was. He was. Spent many of his hours on scaffolding, effectively making this work. They're making these murals, and I love the idea of this prop. These things holding things up, like crutches, supporting things like. Like. Like they would be supporting Frieda in her. In her corsetry, in her. In the way that she's, you know, held up after this accident. She's had horrible accent. She's had. And. And I feel like that was interesting in terms of. To play with and to deconstruct and show within the way that we're. We're assembling things in the room. And I think. And as you say, it does come into the opera. We. We see Diego making a mural in, you know, in the second half of the opera. And I. And I just love. I just love the kind of sculpturalness of the whole thing. And it's propping up this scaffolding net, which you might see on a sidewalk of it, you know, on. In New York, this kind of blue netting, which is a. Which is a modern material. It's an industrial, modern material, dyed blue. A bit. A bit like a darker version of a casserole color. But the. But it. But it sits there as this kind of modernity that almost looks a little bit like silk, or it could look like kind of blue. You know, blue like a bloodied gauze, but now blue, effectively, that you might wrap around A, you know, a wound or something like that.
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Alison Stewart
There's a photo in the show, Beverly of Rivera sketching his first impressions of San Francisco. The couple had just moved to the United States. They'd be here for a few years.
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Host/Interviewer
How did they find the transition from Mexico to the US?
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Beverly Adams
Well, famously, Kahlo had a tough time with it. Yeah, you know, she was with him while he was making these miraculously beautiful murals in San Francisco. She accompanied him to New York, to Detroit, and she found it very difficult and missed Mexico tremendously. What I love about that photograph is that they're both very, very. It's a beautiful photograph that was part of a New York Times article announcing Rivera, you know, starting out this. This project. And what few people remember now is that in 1930s, Rivera was probably the most famous artist of his time. I mean, MoMA's second retrospective of a single artist was Rivera. First was Matisse, and second was Rivera. So in the 30s, he was much in demand, and he traveled all over the US Doing special projects. Kahlo came along and eventually began to work while she was here. And there's a beautiful painting in the show from 1931, while they were in Detroit, where she's straddling the borderline between the US And Mexico. And you can tell which one she favors.
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Host/Interviewer
You include a piece by Frida Kahlo, originally painted in 1937. It's a self portrait of Frida and her pet monkey. First of all, can you tell us a little bit about this pet monkey and why it was so important in her life?
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Beverly Adams
I don't know a lot about the monkey, I'm afraid to say. John, do you know about the monkey?
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John Bowser
I don't know much about Fu Lang Chung, but, like, I think her monkey was quite important to her. And I know she had one and these kind of. She had these little. She also had these little puppets, and she was obsessed with baby dolls and had these little creatures and little forms effectively surrounding at all times. And I think probably Fu Langcheng was part of that.
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Beverly Adams
And in her house, right, she had a. She had a deer as a pet. She had small dogs. So I think. I think, you know, and they. And they do end up in her works. And there's a beautiful painting in the show where she is, you know, has the body of a deer and with her face. So I think that the. The Menagerie in Mexico City and the Casa Azul shows up in her paintings quite frequently.
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Alison Stewart
You know, this show at MoMA, you
- [18:05]
Host/Interviewer
have the opera, other museums, like you said. Are doing retrospectives of Frida Kahlo's work. Netflix is planning a series around Frida and Diego. I think Brooklyn Museum did a show
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Beverly Adams
a few years ago.
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Host/Interviewer
For each of you, I'll ask you to weigh on this. Why do you think Frida and her relationship with Diego are having such a moment right now? What do you think, Beverly?
- [18:27]
Beverly Adams
Well, you know, beyond the relationship part, you know, I mentioned that Rivera was the most famous artist of his time in the 30s. We can now say the same is true about Frida. And she has this power and this way of relating. Her works are infinitely relatable and there's a whole phenomena around her. I think that because she so openly described herself and constructed this outward looking view of herself for people to relate to that we continue to do that. We saw her as maybe, you know, the artist's wife at first, but she has totally become the painter on her own. We love that kind of story, right? As the woman artist who comes out from underneath the very large shadow of her husband. There's so many things that we can relate to in her work that it just seems to me, it seems natural to want to keep looking and thinking about it. I think sometimes the life overshadows the work and I would just be here to advocate that. The work is amazing.
- [19:33]
Alison Stewart
What do you think, John?
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John Bowser
Yeah, I agree. I mean, I obviously agree with Beverly. I mean, I think she, this, you know, this emotion laid bare her introspection and her and bravery and not, not kind of shying away from exposing that and showing that makes it, makes it modern, makes it contemporary and makes us interested in it. You know, obviously Diego is, is much more contemporary to that time and political to that time. But, but obviously that has, you know, waves of, of current kind of. It seems there's a similarity there and I think, you know, and also just the beauty of that as not only the beauty of their painting, but, you know, the costume, the heritage that sits within that. We're doing, we're being very true to that and we've done a lot of work with my co costume designer Wilbur Gonzalez and I for the MoMA show, for the Met show too. To go to go to Mexico, we're having the embroidery made in Oaxaca by the real people that made it, you know, originally and you know, generations on.
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Alison Stewart
We're going to have to leave it there. I want to shout out Beverly Adams and John Bosser. The name of the show is Frito and Diego the Last Dream. It's at moma. Thank you for your time.
- [20:49]
Beverly Adams
Thank you thank you.
- [20:53]
Host/Interviewer
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