Compose styles
Rather than blending styles toward a middle, this gives them roles. The first one carries the structure, the next comes in as the accent, and anything after that shows up in a single detail. Where they fight each other, it says so before you start.
How to divide the work
- Composition
- Follow Neo-Concrete Art: Design several valid states rather than one, reached by opening or turning
- Type
- Set in Neo-Concrete Art's manner (Run type across the fold so it resolves only when opened), and let Tropicália's lettering (Mix handwriting, sign painting and printed faces, breaking unity on purpose) appear only where you want the eye to catch.
- Material
- Ground in Neo-Concrete Art's material (Thin metal or board with hinges tuned to move under the hand's weight); bring in exactly one thing from Tropicália (Sand, raw wood, cloth, temporary boards and primary paint left rough).
- Colour
- Build on #ece5ce, #d95b37, #315f86 and admit one accent from #f0d33c, #d64b37, #2d756c.
Where they fight
- Neo-Concrete Art and Tropicália both belong to Brazilian Avant-garde, so the difference is small. Push the roles further apart than feels comfortable.
Caution
- Neo-Concrete Art Read it through the revolt against objectivism and the transformation the viewer's body performs, not as Brazilian geometric abstraction, and note that fragile moving parts go untouched and leave only ornament.
- Tropicália Reducing it to colorful tropical taste reproduces the tourist paradise it set out to criticize, so the Brazilian military regime, the favelas and the political mixing of music and art have to be read.
Image prompt
Produce four original images that take their structure from Neo-Concrete Art (style, 1959–1966) and their accent from Tropicália (style, mid-1960s–). ## What to make Make the kind of thing Neo-Concrete Art exists for: interactive exhibits and teaching objects that visitors are meant to open and move, or printed pieces and invitations that change shape through folds and hinges. Choose one subject and hold it across all four. ## Structure comes from Neo-Concrete Art - Movable geometry - Bodily participation - Folds and hinges - Sensuous color and space Composition: Design several valid states rather than one, reached by opening or turning. Type and lettering: Run type across the fold so it resolves only when opened. ## Accent comes from Tropicália, used sparingly - Blazing hybridity - Participatory space - Music and costume - The tropical image inverted Let one material quality come from it: Sand, raw wood, cloth, temporary boards and primary paint left rough. ## Colour and feeling Build the ground on #ece5ce, carry the structure in #d95b37 and #315f86, and let a single accent come from #d64b37. These are read off real works, so a direction rather than a fixed palette. Feeling to carry: play, exhilaration, intimacy, rebellion. ## Where they fight - Neo-Concrete Art and Tropicália both belong to Brazilian Avant-garde, so the difference is small. Push the roles further apart than feels comfortable. ## What goes wrong - Neo-Concrete Art: Read it through the revolt against objectivism and the transformation the viewer's body performs, not as Brazilian geometric abstraction, and note that fragile moving parts go untouched and leave only ornament. - Tropicália: Reducing it to colorful tropical taste reproduces the tourist paradise it set out to criticize, so the Brazilian military regime, the favelas and the political mixing of music and art have to be read. ## Across the four Keep the roles fixed in all four. Vary the framing, the scale and the arrangement so the set shows what this pairing can do rather than four versions of one picture. ## Constraints - Do not imitate, reference or name any specific artist, studio, brand, character or copyrighted work. - Do not reproduce the composition of an existing work. - Produce original compositions in the general period languages described above.
Related entries
- Neo-Concrete Art 1959–1966 / Style / Brazilian Avant-garde
Releases geometric abstraction from a fixed visual order and opens the work to touching, moving and entering, so that it becomes an experience that changes as the body takes part.
- Tropicália mid-1960s– / Style / Brazilian Avant-garde
Mixes vivid color, music, sand, plants, temporary structures and audience participation to criticize both the repression of military rule and the outsider's image of a 'tropical paradise.'
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