The Tropicália-Movement and the Challenges to Brazilian Art in the Age of Culture Industry

Pedro  Duarte

doi:10.25038/am.v0i26.470

Authors

Pedro Duarte

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.25038/am.v0i26.470

Keywords:

Tropicália movement, culture industry, art, market, technology, Brazil

Abstract

This article analyzes the original way in which the Brazilian cultural and musical movement Tropicália, led by Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil in the late 1960s, dealt with the constant imminence of seizure by the culture industry. Instead of seeking isolation from this modern reality of the market, Tropicália strove to critically amalgamate it, in addition to its technological innovations. In doing so, it established a language that brought together erudition and popular elements, as well as foreign influences and the Brazilian subject matter. Tropicália was not about using aesthetical autonomy as an alibi for shunning the world, but about accepting the challenges of artistic communication in a mass society, especially by means of popular music. It thereby introduced to Brazil the possibility of having vanguard art done while harnessing new media forms.

Article received: April 20, 2021; Article accepted: June 23, 2021; Published online: October 15, 2021; Original scholarly article

How to cite this article: Duarte, Pedro. "The Tropicália-Movement and the Challenges to Brazilian Art in the Age of Culture Industry." AM Journal of Art and Media Studies 26 (October 2021): 63-70. doi: 10.25038/am.v0i26.470

Author Biography

Pedro Duarte

Department of Philosophy, Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro
Brazil

Pedro Duarte (1981), Department of Philosophy, Pontifical Catholic Univeristy of Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio). Born in Rio de Janeiro. Bachelor’s Degree at PUC-Rio, and currently a PhD Professor of Philosophy at the same institution. Fulbright Chair of Brazilian Studies at Emory University, Post-PhD studies (USA, 2020). Visiting Scholar at the universities of Södertörns (Sweden, 2012) and Brown (USA, 2004/2006). Author of the books A pandemia e o exílio do mundo (Bazar do Tempo, 2020); Tropicália (Cobogó, 2018); A palavra modernista: vanguarda e manifesto (Casa da Palavra, 2014); and Estio do tempo: Romantismo e estética moderna (Zahar, 2011). Translated Hannah Arendt’s work The freedom to be free (Liberdade para ser livre, Bazar do Tempo, 2018). Co-author, screenwriter and curator of the TV series Alegorias do Brasil, with director Murilo Salles (Canal Curta!, 2018). Editor of the journal O que nos faz pensar.

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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.25038/am.v0i26.470 DOI: https://doi.org/10.25038/am.v0i26.470