Tropicália
The Tropicália movement emcompasses the artistic cultural revolution of Brazil between the years of 1968-1972. It covers everything from the odd art meets psychology philosophy of Lygia Clark to fashion of the time period to rare footage of musicians Caetano Veloso and Os Mutantes especially. It features album covers with their original artwork and a compelling background history that discusses the opressive political rule under Costa e Silva and how musicians and the art community were affected. (For one, Gilberto Gil and Veloso were forced into exile in 1969). So if you think about it, not only were these artists and musicians creating some amazing works but they were also doing something that would place them in danger because of the dictatorial political climate. It made me gain a whole new appreciation of them.
This exhibit also features Teatro Oficiana’s 1967 production of The Candle King, an avant garde play by Oswald de Andrade with drawings and stills of the play being performed. In addition, there is a reconstruction of a beach with a couple of tropical birds and different tasting liquids to be sampled at will. There are revolutionary art pieces and an interactive art and music piece which features a series of small wooden boxes. When each wooden box is open, a new sound is created and you see new different images of Brazil. In essence, you are creating your own song by controlling which components of the song will be heard and which won’t. Of course, I opened all of the boxes at once (like you couldn’t guess that one.)
This exhibit runs until Jan 8th in Chicago at the MCA (Museum of Contemporary Art) and then goes to the Barbican Gallery in London from Feb 15th to May 21st, 2006 and then to Lisbon from July-Sept 2006 returning back to the states from October 14th, 2006-January 28,2007 at the Bronx Museum of the Arts.
Here is the official site to learn more.
I would also recommend a new compilation of many of the musicians features at this exhibit called Tropicália. It aso features short interviews with Tom Zé and Sergio Dias (of Os Mutantes) talking about creating music during times of political oppression. If you live in the Chicago area, you can find this collection as well as many of the albums featured at the exhibit at Dusty Groove on Ashland Avenue just south of the intersection of Division and Milwaukee. Dusty Groove also has decent soul, jazz and French sections.
(now playing: Gilberto Gil: 1968)
December 12th, 2005 at 1:03 am
thats pretty cool, the art work looks nice.