Since the 1960s, Tropicalism has become much more than one of the final modernist/or first post-modern vanguards - as is so often said. The movement took hold as an efficient and reiterated form of dualist "reasoning" through which to define Brazilian culture and steer its production (both aesthetically and politically). The article aims to take the present moment of triumph (and crisis) in the Tropicalist logic as a platform from which to analyze the history of the process that launched Tropicalism into the heart of the contemporary cultural debate in Brazil and abroad.
Tropicalism; Caetano Veloso; cinema novo; Roberto Schwarz; the plastic arts