The purpose of this paper is to analyze the emergence of the Brazilian identity. To do this I will analyze the work of Lygia Clark, Hélio Oiticica and Caetano Veloso. Through the examination of their works we can see how the Brazilian culture came into its own. The definition of being Brazilian was changed often through art movements, such as the development of performance art and the counterculture movement of the 1960s. Figures like Clark, Oiticica and Veloso helped form a Brazilian identity through their art works. Brazil was greatly transformed from an undeveloped culture, into a modern nation largely due to the work of these figures, and the cultural movements that they inspired. These artists all proposed that to be avant-garde was not significant unless you engage the community of real people. They wanted popular culture to become coherent with social movements. They needed the support and backing of the real people of Brazil, not just those who could appreciated “high-art.”
Brazil needed to develop self-sufficiency in many arenas of society. Brazil was still struggling economically and politically during the late 1950s and 1960s with many of the implications of the colonization by Portugal. Portuguese culture was not so much seen on the surface of every day life in
…show more content…
These artists all “ask why certain relationships exit between different groups, individuals, artistic forms, commercial transactions, and political forces,” making their work a truly all encompassing form of progress and revolution for Brazil (Veloso, 9). By understanding the essential connection between all of these aspects of life, they were engaging in an essential “participation in a universal and international urban cultural reality; all of this being an unveiling of the mystery of the island of Brazil” (Veloso,