Tropicália

トロピカリア / 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.'

Tropicália — Oiticica, Penetrável (Inhotim)（CC BY 2.0） · © Marcelo Costa — Oiticica, Penetrável (Inhotim)（CC BY 2.0） · CC BY 2.0 · © Marcelo Costa

Tropicália — Oiticica, Magic Square（CC BY-SA 2.0） · © régine debatty — Oiticica, Magic Square（CC BY-SA 2.0） · CC BY-SA 2.0 · © régine debatty

Tropicália — Wearing Hélio Oiticica, Parangolé: Da adversidade vivemos — Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0 · © Pamelavazquezt — Wearing Hélio Oiticica, Parangolé: Da adversidade vivemos — Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0 · CC BY-SA 3.0 · © Pamelavazquezt

At a glance

Visual cues

Blazing hybridity
Participatory space
Music and costume
The tropical image inverted

Best used for

Music festivals and cultural events that want to celebrate mixture and unruliness
Critical advertising or covers that quote the tropical cliche in order to invert it

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Dictionary entry

Type: Mix handwriting, sign painting and printed faces, breaking unity on purpose
Composition: Build paths and places to linger so the audience completes the piece
Material: Sand, raw wood, cloth, temporary boards and primary paint left rough
Caution: 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.
Further study: Hélio Oiticica / Lygia Pape / Caetano Veloso / Gilberto Gil

Related entries

Neo-Concrete Art (ネオ・コンクリート・アート)Same Brazilian Avant-garde lineage.Compare Tropicália and Neo-Concrete Art
Psychedelic (サイケデリック)Shared effects: Exhilaration / Rebellion.Compare Tropicália and Psychedelic

Cite this entry

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Link: https://indexstyle.org/styles/tropicalia
Markdown: [Tropicália — IndexStyle](https://indexstyle.org/styles/tropicalia)
HTML: <a href="https://indexstyle.org/styles/tropicalia">Tropicália — IndexStyle</a>

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