Tropical ginsberg

59
Devoração das imagens conflitantes que encenam
uma cultura brasileira. Esta devoração se atribui
aos participantes: apropriando-se dos elementos
disparatados, justapostos, que formam uma
‘síntese imagética’[...] produzindo a evidenciação
do processo de constituição das contradições
anunciadas. 123
The work consisted of a path that the spectator was invited to
stroll across, and the “landscape” beside the path was composed of
bananas, araras, sand, exotic plants, and small tents, or “penetráveis,” in
which the spectator was invited to enter, the path ended in a tent which
had a television set, turned on at all times. The proposition was to show
the diverse agents of everyday urban life, all, in one small path;
everything, from the slums, to extreme stereotypical portraits of Brazil –
such as the bananas, and exotic landscapes – was contained in the path,
and as the spectator strolled through it he/she would interpret it through
his/her own perspective.
Perhaps like few artists of the early s 1960s, Hélio Oiticica
managed to combine various artistic elements into his art, producing a
“supra-sensorial” 124 art, an art which would involve elements of
perception such as audition, vision, and tact, as well as the participation
of the observer. “Parangolé” was Oiticica’s first major 125 experiment
towards this “supra-sensorial” art, it consisted of several pieces of cloth,
sometimes even other materials such as plastic, or latex, sewed together
into one gigantic entanglement, very much like a flag, or a kaleidoscopic
patchwork quilt. The observer-spectator became a participantprotagonist,
and was invited to hear music while trying to put on the
“Parangolé.” 126
123123
Favaretto, Celso. “Tropicália: A Explosão do óbvio,” Tropicália: Uma Revolução na
Cultura Brasileira [1967-1972]. Basualdo, Carlos (org): São Paulo, Cosac Naify, 2007. 94.
124
Oiticica, Hélio, “Aparecimento do Supra-sensorial,” Aspiro ao Grande Labirinto. Rio de
Janeiro: Rocco, 1986. 103.
125
I consider the “Parangolé” more significant, or “major,” than the previous experimentation
of Oiticica, his “Bólides” (1962) - which consited of glass-objects the public could manipulate
filled with all sorts of materials, condensing a colorful image - because the “Parangolé” is a full
object, and needs the spectator’s full integration with it to exist. Unlike the “Bólide,” which can
be viewed-admired even when on a table, the “Parangolé” does not “exist,” cannot be viewedadmired
if it is exposed lifeless, hung up, or on a table.
126
Illustrious fellow citizens like Torquato Neto, and complete strangers, from our dancing
Mangueira to the grim subways of New York, dressed the Parangolé.