Compose two styles
Rather than blending two styles into a middle, this assigns them roles: one carries the structure, the other appears as an accent. Where the two fight, 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
- 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
An original image that takes its structure from Neo-Concrete Art (Style, 1959–1966) and its accent from Tropicália (Style, mid-1960s–). Structural cues: Movable geometry; Bodily participation; Folds and hinges; Sensuous color and space. Accent cues, used sparingly: Blazing hybridity; Participatory space; Music and costume; The tropical image inverted. 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. Let one material quality come from the second style: Sand, raw wood, cloth, temporary boards and primary paint left rough. Mood: Play, Exhilaration, Intimacy, Rebellion. Color: build on #ece5ce, #d95b37, #315f86 with a single accent drawn from #f0d33c, #d64b37, #2d756c. Constraints: do not imitate, reference or name any specific artist, studio, brand, character or copyrighted work. Produce an original composition 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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